Laundromat Death Baffles Town

The Wagoners live two doors from the Village Laundry. Rebecca Wagoner told police she had gone there to use the pay phone to call her husband, bringing along her daughter and son. She told police she was outside when things went wrong.

Hope's father, William Wagoner, in a brief interview Thursday insisted that there is "more to the story than you know." Although residents in the town portrayed the Wagoners' relationship as on-again, off-again -- they share children from previous marriages -- William Wagoner said they are very much together as a family. He said he was reluctant to go into details until he spoke with his attorney, but he portrayed the facts underlying his daughter's death as "a story you are never going to believe."

"We're a happy family," he said. "No abuse. . . . But let me ask you, do you believe one turn of events leads to another?"

Wagoner didn't stay on the phone long enough to answer his own question.

Police Chief Dwayne Sheffield runs a five-man department in Chilhowie, whose police blotter is filled almost solely by reports of domestic violence and alcohol-related crimes. Hope Wagoner's death has been anything but routine for Sheffield, whose phone has barely stopped ringing since Monday, when word of the unusual death reached the media.

Residents said they feel the same kind of pain they felt eight years ago, when a man shot and killed his girlfriend, his son and then himself. The shootings devastated the town.

"Please, please, I beg you," Sheffield drawled as his cell phone continued its ringing. He had tried fruitlessly for an hour to fill out his department's payroll. But it would not happen. He said the medical examiner's office had released its preliminary results that suggest Hope died of asphyxiation, but the chief wants more concrete answers.

"This little girl deserves the truth to be found out, and that's just what I'm going to do," Sheffield said. Until the investigation is complete, he said, he would not risk a misstep or misspoken word.

Asked whether Rebecca Wagoner could be charged with neglect, he said only that he will examine every possibility.

Outside a relative's home, Hope's uncle, Chris Breedlove, said it has been hard on the family. "All the hugs and donations of food people bring you won't fix nothing."

Hope was buried Wednesday. That night, two dozen mourners gathered outside the laundry with candles to talk and weep. They tried to be supportive of the family, but talk among them quickly turned to issues of responsibility.

Regardless of how Hope Wagoner got into the washer, no matter how it got turned on, most who gathered agreed that someone should have been keeping an eye on the girl.

"That child should have been watched," Marie Keesee told the crowd before joining in a verse of "Amazing Grace."

Down the street at the Speed Wash Laundromat, George Crabtree was stuffing wet clothes into six dryers. He had grown accustomed to using the Village Laundry to run giant loads of jeans and towels. He said he didn't have the heart to do laundry after Hope's death.

Thursday, he dismissed any notion that Hope closed the door on her own.

"That little kid didn't shut that door from the inside," Crabtree said, plunking quarters into the dryers. "Someone shut that door."

Keesee doesn't know what to think, but she's sure of one thing: Tragedies such as Hope's death don't happen in small towns like Chilhowie. "No," she said. "Not here."