VIRGINIA BRIEFING

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Pr. WILLIAM SLAYING

Police Charge 3 With Murder in Beating

Three men have been charged with murder in the beating death of a 21-year-old Manassas man who was last seen alive running from a mob of men, Prince William County police said yesterday.

Charles A. Angelos Jr. was discovered dead in a back yard in the 8000 block of Portwood Turn about 9 a.m. Nov. 18, police said. The night before, Angelos, his roommate and a neighbor had gone looking for three men who threw a five-gallon paint bucket through a glass door at Angelos's Georgian Court home. When they arrived at Portwood Turn, they were chased by about 15 men, according to police. Angelos's roommate and neighbor managed to get away.

The three men were each charged with murder. Arrested were Marvin A. Rodriguez-Barrera, 19, of the 3500 block of Coxcomb Mews in Dale City; Salvador M. Elias-Miranda, 25, of the same address; and Elias I. Quinteros-Soriano, 29, of the 7800 block of Meadow Ct. in Manassas. They are being held without bond.

-- Theresa Vargas

FAIRFAX CRIME

DNA Used to Convict Man in 1991 Case

A West Virginia man was convicted in Fairfax County yesterday of abducting, raping and robbing a 19-year-old woman in the Chantilly area in 1991, a crime to which he was linked solely by DNA found on the victim's blouse.

A Fairfax jury took 90 minutes to decide that Troy Holland, 38, of Charles Town was one of two men who grabbed the woman as she emerged from her car in the Shenandoah Crossing apartment complex, along Route 50 in western Fairfax, on Nov. 2, 1991. The woman testified Monday that the men wore masks and gloves, forced her back into her car and repeatedly assaulted her, then drove her back to the Chantilly neighborhood where she lived.

In 2004, a DNA hit identified an initial suspect, Donald H. Roper, 40, then living in Fredericksburg. Roper was arrested last year, convicted at trial this year and sentenced last week to 115 years in prison. After identifying Roper, Fairfax detectives linked him to Holland, obtained Holland's DNA and found a second match. The jury will meet again today to decide a sentence.

-- Tom Jackman

Statistics for 2005 Show Drop Overall

As 2006 draws to a close, Fairfax County yesterday released its crime statistics for 2005, showing a nearly 4 percent drop in serious crime from the previous year, although violent crime stayed about the same. Statistics compiled by Fairfax show the county has the lowest crime rate, or crimes per 100,000 population, in the Washington area.

The FBI defines the seven most serious crimes as murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and auto theft. Combined, those crimes have dropped nearly 23 percent since 2001, statistics show. Larceny, which makes up the majority of the combined crimes, has dropped in Fairfax from more than 20,000 a year in the early 1990s to fewer than 15,000 in the past two years.

Fairfax continued its unusual practice of counting murders by case, rather than by number of victims, counting a multiple homicide as one case. The number of victims rose from 10 to 24 in 2005. The number of rape cases also rose dramatically, from 47 to 94. But robberies, burglaries and auto thefts all declined by 11 percent or more. The release of the statistics was delayed until December because of problems obtaining statistics from other jurisdictions for purposes of comparison, police spokeswoman Mary Ann Jennings said.

-- Tom Jackman

SPRINGFIELD INTERCHANGE

Cold Prevents Painting, Delaying Ramp Opening

The opening of a ramp at the Springfield interchange was postponed until next week because it's too cold to paint lane markings, Virginia Department of Transportation officials said yesterday. Temperatures must be at least 45 degrees for the markings to stick to the pavement.

The setback was the third construction-related delay for the ramp, which was originally scheduled to open Nov. 22.

The ramp, which will connect the outer loop of the Capital Beltway to the southbound lanes of Interstate 95, is expected to alleviate problems at one of the worst merges in the Mixing Bowl. The existing ramp forces outer loop drivers to move to the left at the end of the ramp to get onto I-95 at the same spot that drivers coming south on Interstate 395 must move to the right to exit in Springfield.

-- Steven Ginsberg

U-Va. GIFT

BET's Johnson Will Donate $5 Million

Sheila C. Johnson, the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and an owner of the Washington Capitals and Washington Mystics, will announce today a gift of $5 million to the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, sources said.

The gift, which was first reported in the Wall Street Journal, will be announced at a news conference with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) in Richmond.

Johnson was one of Kaine's biggest supporters during his gubernatorial campaign, contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars. She serves as the president of the WNBA Mystics and on the boards of the Curry Foundation and the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at U-Va.

-- Michael D. Shear