Town IDA Updated on Project

by JoBeth Wampler
Staff Reporter
  The Town of Grundy Industrial Development Authority got its final look at signed agreements with Commonwealth-Grundy Partners, L.P., last Tuesday at its regularly scheduled meeting.
  Amendments to the agreement were finalized last week, which will see the town contribute some $2.2 million in additional funding toward the construction of a 500-space parking structure on the redevelopment site.
  Construction is expected to begin within 60 days and will include the construction of a Wal-Mart Super Center on the site.
  One of the signed original documents was to be sent back to Commonwealth with copies going to all board members, Grundy IDA Director Chuck Crabtree said.
  Crabtree later told IDA members that drainage had been completed at Site E.
  In other discussion, Crabtree noted the Grundy Plaza may soon have some new tenants.
  The Town IDA has been in contact with a Mexican restaurant and Rotech Home Medical Care, Inc., locally known as Love Joy, which is currently located in the building across from the Comfort Inn.
  The Mexican restaurant, whose name was not given, has expressed interest in the upper portion of the Grundy Plaza behind the Peking Restaurant.
  Crabtree said he is awaiting contact from the business' contractor before further details will be given.
  Love Joy has begun discussion on lease agreements for the former Adventure Bike Shop in the Grundy Plaza and a storage space behind the town's police offices, he said.
  The regular rental rate of $7 per square foot will apply to the approximately 400 square feet storage space and 1,500 storefront. An exact cost of the lease with actual square footage has not yet been determined.
  The lease would be for five years with renewals available.
  IDA member Chris Mitchell sought permission last Tuesday to clean up the upper end of the Grundy Plaza, pulling up portions of guardrail and creating space for a recycling area.
  "I say let's do it," Ed Bunn said.
  Before IDA Chairman Mark Mutter concluded his motion to do just that, Bunn suggested the board should decide what party would be responsible for such actions.
  It was determined that the Buchanan County Litter Control Office should be authorized, and Mutter continued his motion to allow the office to take up the first three sections of guardrail and place recycling bins in the grassy area on the upper end of the Grundy Plaza, pending legal approval.
  Chris Shortridge seconded that motion.
  The motion was unanimously approved.
  This week, guardrail had already been removed and Crabtree said gravel pathways will be created after recycling bins are placed.
  In other business, Mutter requested Bob Hale be recognized for his work on the board.
  According to Mutter, Hale played a role in landing the deal, which will bring a new Wal-Mart Super Center to Grundy, as well as subsequent development.
  Shortridge suggested the board prepare a plaque, recognizing his efforts.
  Mutter made the motion to honor Hale with a plaque and Mitchell made the second.
  The motion passed unanimously.
  "I think Bob spent a lot of time on that," Bunn commented, adding that Hale worked on the Town IDA for around 10 years and hardly missed a meeting.
  "I appreciate you bringing it to our attention and I think it's well overdue," he said to Mutter.

Breaks Man Enters 'No Contest' Plea To Wife's Murder
Sentencing Deferred to March Date

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
  A 70-year-old Breaks area man entered pleas of “no contest” last Wednesday to one count each of first degree murder and use of a firearm in the 2003 murder of his wife, Barbara Childress.
  Sammy Darrell Childress killed his wife September 2, 2003 after he walked into the beauty shop in which she was working at Harman Junction, aimed the shotgun he carried in with him and pulled the trigger twice as she stood rolling up a customer’s hair.
  Commonwealth Attorney Sheila Tolliver introduced evidence in the case which included the gun and shell casings, as well as testimony from two customers in the shop who were witnesses to the murder and a number of sheriff’s department deputies and investigators, who reported to the scene and participated in the investigation.
  Circuit Court Judge Bob Williams took Childress’s pleas under advisement and ordered a pre-sentence report for March 16.
  “From the commonwealth’s evidence, I find there is sufficient evidence to make a finding of guilt, but will withhold that finding of guilt,” Williams said as he ordered the pre-sentence report for Sammy Childress.
  Evidence introduced by Tolliver included testimony from Norma Jean Matney, who testified she was sitting in the chair having her hair rolled up when a man she identified as Sammy Childress walked into the store with a shotgun in hand. Another woman, Lois Woods, who also testified, was under the dryer in the shop.
  “He came in the door holding the gun to the floor and he looked around and said, ‘Barb, I’m gonna kill you; I’ll give your customers time to get out and then I’ll kill you ’,” Matney recalled. 
  She said Sammy Childress then started walking toward Barbara Childress and she said she told him he did not want to kill Barbara Childress.
  “He said, ‘no, Norma, I’m gonna kill her,” Matney said. “And then he shot her. She was right over top of me.”
  Matney said after Barbara Childress was shot, she fell to the floor and Matney said she crawled over the body and ran out of the shop to get help. She said her husband was waiting in the car and she ran to him to tell him to call 9-1-1.
  “I told him Sam killed or shot Barbara,” Matney remembered.
  She said she then ran into the rug store next door and there, she and Woods, who ran out of the store as well, waited with the shop owner in the floor.
  “We laid in the floor and prayed,” Matney said. “I heard another shot and bullet came through the wall and broke up some stuff. It seemed like forever, but then they brought Sam out, handcuffed . . . I couldn’t imagine that anyone could be so cold-blooded like that.”
  Lois Woods, the other customer in the store the day Barbara Childress was murdered, said she was sitting under the hair dryer when Sammy Childress walked in.
  Woods said she was reading a book as her hair dried and said when he walked into the store, all she knew at first was that someone had walked past her.
  “I noticed he had a gun . . . it appeared to be a shotgun, but I didn’t think that much about it and looked back at my book,” Woods said.
  A few moments later, she said she looked up from her book to see that Sammy Childress had the gun pointed in the direction of Barbara Childress and Norma Matney.
  “I knew that wasn’t normal and I raised the dryer hood back and heard him say, ‘get your customers out, I’m gonna kill you,’” Woods said. “She (Barbara Childress) looked puzzled and said, ‘Sam, what’s the matter with you?’”
  Sammy Childress then shot her and Woods said she ran from the shop and to the rug store next door.
  “We got under a table and stayed there,” Woods said, relating that a few minutes later Norma Matney and her husband came in the store as well. She said a shot came through the wall and hit a statue.
  Within 15 minutes, she said, the police arrived.
  Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Larry Crouse, testified about the findings of officers arriving at the scene.
  Altogether, he said there appeared to have been four shots fired. Three shell casings were found that day. The fourth was found later.
  Barbara Childress, he said, had been shot in the head and lay dead on the floor of the beauty shop.
  Deputy Frennie Justus, who arrived on the scene shortly after Deputy Blaine Crouse, said Sammy Childress was still inside the beauty shop as he arrived. The door was locked and Crouse was knocking on it, urging Childress to come out. Sammy Childress came out without further incident and was handcuffed. Justus said he stayed with Sammy Childress while Crouse went in to check on Barbara Childress.
  Crouse came out shortly thereafter to report Barbara Childress had been shot and was dead.
  Deputy Brent Clevinger said he arrived on the scene to find Sammy Childress sitting with Deputy Frennie Justus just outside the shop door.
  “As I approached, he told me he killed her and he didn’t want her to die alone,” Clevinger said.
  Justus testified that Sammy Childress had related to him that he and Barbara Childress had been separated at the time of the shooting and said Sammy Childress said he had helped her fix up the apartment to which she had moved in. The night before, he said, she had told him she wasn’t coming back.
  Eric Rasnake, who was the jailer on duty when Childress was brought in, said Sammy Childress told him he had been looking in the Bible for the past week to find the passage which he said some had told him was there which stated a man was condemned if he took his own life.
  Rasnake said Childress told him he was supposed to die with his wife earlier in the day and told the jailer if he could not have his wife, no one would.
  Shea Cook, Sammy Childress’s court-appointed attorney, commented briefly after the conclusion of Wednesday’s proceedings.
  “Anyway you look at it, this was a terribly tragic situation for everyone,” Cook said.
  He noted that during the sentencing phase of the case, evidence related to Sammy Childress’ health would be introduced as mitigating evidence.
  Cook alleged Sammy Childress suffered from what he called “an impaired decision making process due to relatively severe diabetes in the days leading up to the shooting.”
  Cook said Sammy Childress was “a deeply religious person” and indicated that was what led Sammy Childress to enter the pleas of “no contest” he entered Wednesday.
  “He came to the conclusion that entering the plea was the right thing to do,” Cook said.
  At the sentencing hearing next month, Sammy Childress faces a sentence of 20 years to life and up to a $100,000 fine for the murder and a minimum of three years for the use of a firearm.