DATE: Thursday, November 6, 1997            TAG: 9711060420

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:  112 lines

VIRGINIA

Jury recommends

the death penalty

for murderer of 4

SALEM - A Roanoke County jury recommended Wednesday that Earl Bramblett be put to death for killing his former best friend along with the man's wife and two daughters.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for 78 minutes before issuing its decision on the second day of Bramblett's sentencing hearing.

In opting for the death sentence over life in prison, the jury decided that Bramblett's crimes were vile and that he still posed a danger to society. A judge will formally sentence Bramblett next month.

Three witnesses testified earlier Wednesday that Bramblett was a good father, a valued worker and an unselfish assistant coach in youth basketball.

Michael Bramblett, 22 and a junior at Virginia Tech, said his father always attended his basketball games and track events, and he recounted their hiking trips and excursions to the Grand Canyon.

Sherman Swafford, Bramblett's boss at a printing shop in Spartanburg, S.C., said the man was ``always extremely honest.'' Swafford said Bramblett ran the business for him when his wife was diagnosed with cancer.

But on the first day of the sentencing hearing, several women testified that Bramblett either sexually assaulted or terrorized them in the past.

One of the women, now 33, said Bramblett initiated sex with her when she was 12 or 13 years old. Another said Bramblett dragged her into the kitchen of his Bedford home in the late 1970s, held a gun to her head and then fired a shot into the floor.

Bramblett, 55, was convicted Friday of killing Blaine and Teresa Hodges of Vinton and their two daughters, Winter 11, and Anah, 3, in August 1994. Prosecutors said Bramblett killed the family because he feared Blaine Hodges was about to tell police that Bramblett sexually molested Winter Hodges.

Bramblett also was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson. The jury recommended four life terms for those crimes Friday.

Tech abuzz over discovery

that Klansman was honored

BLACKSBURG - The discovery that the namesake of a Virginia Tech dormitory and the originator of the school's Hokies nickname may have had Ku Klux Klan ties has caused a stir on campus.

Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen has appointed a committee to respond to the discovery, and a report is expected by the end of the week.

``The charge, as I understand it, is to advise the president about two things: what exactly did happen and what should we do about it,'' history professor Peter Wallenstein, one of the three members of the committee, said Tuesday.

The discovery was made last month by students in Wallenstein's course on Virginia Tech history. The students discovered a yellowed page in the 1896 school yearbook that listed student Claudius Lee as the ``Father of Terror,'' the founding head of the campus Klan.

Among the list of the group's officers was student O.M. Stull, who wrote the school cheer that led to the Hokies nickname. Stull was identified as the ``Right hand of Terror.''

Lee later became an engineering professor who taught at Tech for 50 years. He died at age 90 in 1962, and a dorm was named for him in 1968.

Stull, who later became president of a limestone company in Buchanan, died in 1964.

Tech historians say they don't know whether the listings were a joke or reflected an active organization. The Klan is not mentioned in subsequent yearbooks.

People who knew Lee and Stull as older men said neither exhibited racism. However, some black students have said they were appalled that the university named a dorm for someone who might have had Klan ties. Central

Alleged wife-killer traced

to Georgia and arrested

FORT LEE - A man who allegedly killed his estranged wife on the Fort Lee Army post was arrested Wednesday in Georgia, police said.

Lamar E. Burgest III, 28, who lived in Norfolk at the time of the shooting May 5, is accused of shooting Army Spc. Adrienne L. Burgest 13 times with a semiautomatic pistol, U.S. Attorney Helen Fahey said in a press release.

Investigators said Burgest was about to leave for her morning physical training when she was shot at 5:30 a.m. She was pronounced dead half an hour later at Southside Regional Medical Center.

The FBI and Fort Lee investigators found Burgest and arrested him in Savannah, Ga. He was charged with first-degree murder.

Air in Richmond area

receives EPA upgrade

RICHMOND - The Richmond area has been upgraded to an ``ozone attainment area,'' the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.

The label is assigned to areas with air quality that meets all of the Clean Air Act's national requirements, including reduced ground-level ozone and smog.

The EPA proposed giving Richmond and the surrounding localities - Henrico County, Chesterfield County, Charles City County, Hanover County, Hopewell and Colonial Heights - the attainment area classification last June. In finalizing the upgrade Wednesday, EPA administrator W. Michael McCabe cited data from the past four years showing the region has put in controls to reduce air pollution.

The upgrade will save central Virginia tens of millions of dollars, EPA environmental scientist Kristeen Gaffney said. If it hadn't qualified for the upgrade, the region would have had to install costly controls on polluting plants, and all residents would have been required to put their cars through a vehicle maintenance program to check emissions.

The EPA announced a new, more stringent ozone smog standard in July 1997, which Richmond doesn't meet. But, McCabe said, ozone attainment areas will keep their designations for three years before their progress toward the new goal is checked.

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