DATE: Sunday, November 23, 1997             TAG: 9711230050

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   93 lines

SUFFOLK WOMAN AND HER BROTHER ARE FATALLY SHOT IN THEIR HOME HER 6-YEAR-OLD SON APPARENTLY SAW IT ALL; HE NOW IS WITH A RELATIVE

The 100 block of Franklin St. was quiet Saturday.

People were out on bikes and foot, enjoying an unseasonably warm, sunny afternoon in Olde Towne. A man with a broom swept fallen leaves from the sidewalk in front of Trinity Catholic Church. A woman raked her yard.

The only thing amiss was a fluttering length of yellow police tape stretched behind the century-old Causey-Kendrick House. The same house where many passing motorists slowed, looking and wondering not of its history but of its new notoriety.

Just before 10 p.m. Friday, police said someone went to the second floor and shot a man and his sister to death - all before the eyes of the woman's young son.

Police identified the victims as David Eugene Artis, 33, and Yvonne Artis Giles, 36. Both were found lying dead on the floor of the apartment they had been sharing for less than a year.

``It's scary,'' said one woman who lives a few houses away and asked that her name not be used. ``Someone just walks in your home and shoots you. I lock my door. Double locks. But they could kick it down.''

There are no suspects in the shooting, police spokesman Mike Simpkins said.

The sister and brother were last seen alive about 9:35 p.m., Simpkins said. At 10:05 p.m., a neighborhood acquaintance came to visit.

``He went upstairs and found the door open and saw a body on the floor inside,'' Simpkins said. Retreating immediately, the man went to a phone and called police.

Officers arrived within minutes. They found a man and woman, both dead. They also found a 6-year-old boy, Giles' son.

``He apparently saw everything,'' Simpkins said. ``It's really sad.''

The boy was taken from the scene and turned over to an adult relative, Simpkins said.

Acquaintances of Giles said she had been working as a customer service manager at a Be-Lo supermarket. It was unclear what her brother did for a living.

``They weren't rowdy at all. They were very unassuming,'' said neighbor Andy McLaughlin. His wife recalled seeing Giles some mornings, packing her son into the car for the trip to school.

Simpkins said that while there are problems with drug dealing in the area, most of the trouble is focused on a street around the corner.

Crime reports for the block in the past three years show about a half-dozen burglaries involving only a few items, such as paint and wine glasses, and two vehicle thefts. There has been one armed robbery of a person walking on the street.

And now the block is brightly lighted at night, thanks to the high-intensity lights in the new parking lot behind the city's nearly complete courthouse complex across the street from the Causey-Kendrick House.

The square, brick house - freshly painted with a coat of bright white, offset with black shutters - was built in the early 1880s. It was once a single-family residence, but has since been subdivided into four apartments. A ``for rent'' sign is posted on its front lawn.

A woman who lives next door said she recalled hearing a ``muffled banging sound, like a barrel being bumped,'' Friday night, but did not take it to be a gunshot. Later, about 10, ``as I went to bed I could hear a child over there.'' Not crying, she said, ``but walking around, going `Oh, oh.' '' Moments later, she heard police arrive.

She was still visibly shaken Saturday, particularly because her daughter's bedroom faces the apartment where the shootings occurred, she said. ``A bullet could have come across and into her room,'' she said.

McLaughlin, who has owned his house next door to the Causey-Kendrick House for a decade, said he and his family ``loved it here,'' at first. The downtown shopping district was just a short walk away, and they liked being in a historic district.

He echoed the feelings of at least two other homeowners in the area, complaining that revitalization efforts in Olde Towne are being thwarted by absentee owners who, they said, rent to anyone and do little to improve properties.

``I didn't know when I bought this house that all the others on this street were rental properties,'' McLaughlin said. The owners, he said, ``don't care who they rent to. It's subsidized housing, so they know they will get their money.''

He pointed out a large, once grand house, next door to his. It is boarded up and marked with a foreclosure notice. Mclaughlin said there was a shooting incident there a year ago when a guest at a party apparently became angry and opened fire, shooting through windows. No one was hurt.

McLaughlin said he bought his 100-year-old home because it was in an area rich with history and he had looked forward to restoring it. ``I've put $10,000 into this house,'' he said. But no more.

He pointed to a sign stuck in the ground a few feet from his front steps: ``For sale - by owner.''

McLaughlin said he's angry about feeling he has to leave, but said his family's safety comes first. He blamed the city for not doing more to police the downtown area, curb the drug trade and force owners to improve their property and take greater responsibility for whom they rent to.

``I could get far, far away from Suffolk,'' McLaughlin said, ``and it wouldn't be far enough.'' KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING

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