BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

Billiejo Marie King walked into court Thursday a guilty woman. The prosecutor called her a sociopath and people shook their heads.

She hoped her medical conditions would save her from incarceration. But Judge Humes J. Franklin Jr., after seeing photographs of a starved and sickly child, slammed King, 45, of Waynesboro, with a seven-year sentence for the years of pain she inflicted on a teen girl.

King pleaded guilty in October to abduction and child abuse charges, more than a year after she locked a 15-year-old girl in a near-empty bedroom and refused to feed her. The starvation caused the child’s weight to plunge to 61 pounds, Waynesboro police said.


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Labels: crime beat, The News Virginian

BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

STAUNTON — Nobody caught Jose Orlando Romero-Feliciano easily. Tracking him meant a chase to the south of the country, down into the twin cities of Louisiana, next to the bank of the Ouachita River.

Romero-Feliciano, 31, spent five months on the run. But a person can’t stay lost forever and the city of West Monroe, La., washed him out like a sieve, right into the arms of the federal authorities assigned to find him.

The Staunton man appeared before a Staunton Circuit Court judge Tuesday, pleading guilt, finally, to a child-sodomy crime.

Staunton authorities first sought Romero-Feliciano in February on charges he violated his probation and forced an 8-year-old girl to perform oral sex on him. But the man fled the state shortly after, sparking a manhunt that eventually included U.S. Marshals in Harrisonburg and Charlottesville, and the Fugitive Apprehension Strike Force led by the U.S. Marshals Service of Western Louisiana.

Staunton Police Investigator Chad Nestor worked the case from the front stoop of Romero-Feliciano’s Staunton home all the way to the end, when he spent more than 14 hours in a car with the man, delivering him back to Virginia.


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Labels: crime beat, Jose Orlando Romero-Feliciano, The News Virginian

BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

LYNDHURST—All the leaves had changed, but Tanya Gigliotti just pushed them aside with her feet. Her job never changes with the season and there were more boxes to carry.

Gigliotti, 50, started the local chapter of Restoration Ministries Global with her husband in 1995, and it became a way for her to live a full life. Every week she and a team of volunteers load a van full of donated food, transport it to Gigliotti’s pantry in Lyndhurst, separate the items into boxes, reload the van and begin deliveries.

Last year they fed more than 800 people a week. This year the need has almost doubled. More than 1,400 people sign up for the food service, the consequence of recession and area job losses, she said.

The increase in need changed the face of volunteerism and giving, Gigliotti said.

“It’s gone down almost half,” she said. “A lot of the people that were helping us just aren’t giving right now. They’re volunteering, but they’re using us, too.”



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BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

By the time police got to the fallen security guard, he’d forgotten his name.

Standing nearly 7 feet, Troy Price, 48, of Fishersville, was hit in the back of the head while working at Eastside Speedway a week ago, authorities said. He suffered several strokes, leaving him without feeling in, or control of, the right side of his body.

Authorities are investigating but have made no arrests.

After days of medical attention, Price’s condition has improved, his wife, Juli, 47, said Saturday.

It was the second violent incident at the Dooms race track in as many months.

Juli Price, who works next to a police scanner at an Augusta County traffic operation center, heard about the assault at the same time as police Oct. 24, she said.

Moments later her phone started ringing. “I get a phone call, and they want to know what meds Troy is taking, because he doesn’t know who he is or what he is,” Juli Price said.


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Labels: crime beat, Eastside Speedway, The News Virginian

BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

GREENVILLE — You gotta mix water in the coffee at the Pilot truck stop in Greenville, otherwise you’ll get the jitters. Trucker Doug Smith swears to this.

Smith must find ways to stay awake and keep moving, especially in Virginia, where rest stop closures contribute to bottlenecking at places like the Pilot station. The trucks from Interstate 81 stream off the highway onto Route 11 and at any given time pose traffic problems for locals and create hurdles for development, Augusta County officials said.



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BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

STAUNTON — The evolution of a neighborhood starts with its most essential element: the neighbors.

So when a man was mugged on Sears Hill on Sept. 14, his neighbors took their community concerns to Staunton city council. The group asked for advice and help; they asked for attention.

Today, members of city council will walk with residents, cleaning up the neighborhood.

Yet the future of Sears Hill remains uncertain. Outside eyes foresee a seventh historic neighborhood. But residents are focused on keeping the community from slipping back to its unsavory past.



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BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

To suggest the jaunty bird preferred Waynesboro to Delaware would be amiss.

Racing pigeons, known for their loyalty, don’t just fly 300 miles out of their way on a whim. And they definitely don’t travel 300 miles out of their way to fly smack into the window of a city finance department.

When the call broke over police scanners in the late morning on a tough and dreary Thursday, Waynesboro Animal Control Officer Dee Price didn’t waste a minute.

Price drove to the second-story balcony of Waynesboro City Hall, observed the situation, then made the call.

“I’ve got a 10-45,” Price announced into her radio.

An animal carcass.

“It had already died when I got there,” Price said. “From what they described to me, and from what I can tell, it looks like it might have just flown into the window.”

The small racing pigeon, or homing pigeon, didn’t come without identification. Its owner tagged the bird’s name around one of its its legs: NEW547.


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Labels: pigeon racing, The News Virginian

BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

More than 300 Stuarts Draft High School students missed classes this week in what district health officials called an upswing of suspected H1N1 virus cases.

In recent weeks, students across the county missed school, complaining about flu-like symptoms, Augusta County Schools Superintendent Gary McQuain said Thursday.

Stuarts Draft High School counted about 100 absent students Tuesday, and 60 more absences Thursday, according to school officials. More specific numbers were not available.

“This is an earlier flu than normal,” McQuain said. “The numbers have gone down in the past couple of days and my guess is that it will pop up elsewhere.”


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Labels: public safety, The News Virginian

BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

STAUNTON — Thirty-three seconds and a missing key landed Timothy Aaron Wilkins in the hands of Augusta County deputies.

Just before authorities arrested him for the murder of his girlfriend, Wilkins rifled through the front seat of his Toyota 4 Runner, looking for his car keys as the body of his girlfriend lay stashed in the trunk, investigators said in court Wednesday.

Wilkins wasn’t going anywhere.


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Labels: crime beat, The News Virginian

BY CHASE PURDY
The News Virginian

Sitting in court Thursday, Brian Eugene Brubaker listened as attorneys authored the second-half of his life.

Judge Victor V. Ludwig softened sentencing of the 42-year-old Crimora man, adding only three years in prison to Brubaker’s existing 22-year sentence from other jurisdictions.

Officials in Rockingham, Augusta and Greene counties first sought Brubaker in June 2008, after he abandoned a decades-long non-violent record for a 15-day robbery spree.

After a failed robbery attempt at Ladd Convenience in Waynesboro, Brubaker went on a string of stickups, later telling an officer he suffered from an addiction, according to court testimony. He robbed at knifepoint seven store clerks in four counties before his arrest in the bathroom of a Harrisonburg car dealership.

Brubaker, suffering from clinical depression, targeted stores with guns, hoping a clerk might end his life, defense attorney Charles E. Garner said.


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Labels: crime beat, The News Virginian