"Hopefully this alert doesn't put you in a trashy mood. Andrew Chapel Road is currently closed in the area of the railroad overpass and Brooke Road due to a stuck trash truck," the Stafford sheriff's office reports.
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On Friday, March 15, at 12:49 p.m., a 72-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed in the 800 block of Widewater Road.
A press release indicates that the Traffic Safety Unit revealed the victim went outside to check her mailbox when the driver traveling eastbound on the two-lane Widewater Road struck her. The driver of the striking vehicle remained on the scene and was uninjured.
The pedestrian was identified as Shelley Moncure of Stafford.
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A Stafford man lost his life while riding a motorcycle on Thursday, March 14.
At 5:17 p.m.deputies were called to the intersection of Joshua Road and Greenleaf Terrace for a report of an auto accident. Deputies arrived on the scene and discovered the two-vehicle crash involving a motorcycle.
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The Stafford County Sheriff's Office is offering Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) classes designed exclusively for women ages 12 and older. The classes aim to equip participants with realistic self-defense tactics and techniques to enhance awareness, prevention, risk reduction, and avoidance strategies.
Scheduled to commence on April 23, the classes will continue on April 30, May 7, and May 14 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Each session will be conducted at the Stafford County Sheriff's Office at 1225 Courthouse Rd. Registration for the upcoming class can be completed through this link.
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The Stafford County Sheriff's Office helped to upright an overturned tractor-trailer on Poplar Road on Thursday, March 13. No injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, The Virginia Department of Transportation says pipe replacement work on Poplar Road is now complete, so overnight lane closures are no longer needed.
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Updated 4 p.m. March 11, 2024: Searchers located the body of a woman who went missing after her kayak capsized on Lake Arrowhead. The 48-year-old victim has not been identified. There there are no signs of foul play, a Stafford sheriff’s spokesman said.
The woman was not wearing a life jacket. Investigators are still trying to determine how the boat capsized.
Original post: Authorities are working to recover the body of a woman who went missing today in Lake Arrowhead.
According to initial information, the woman was on a kayak that capsized on the big lake at about 2:45 p.m. A second person on the vessel swam to shore to summon help.
Fire and rescue crews were called to Oak Lane at 3:50 p.m. Stafford County Fire and Rescue deployed five boats, and Quantico used its flat-bottom boat to search the lake. The rescue effort transitioned to a recovery effort shortly before 7 p.m.
The sheriff’s office has not identified the woman, nor has it said if foul play is suspected.
Sunny conditions were deceiving, as strong winds whipped around the lake as searchers in boats and swimmers in the water searched for the woman. The high winds caused powerlines elsewhere in the county, like Route 1 and Coal Landing Road, to snap. Several tree branches also fell victim to the winds.
There are two lakes in the Lake Arrowhead subdivision. The big lake, the focus of search teams, is at least 15 feet deep.
Police in Stafford and Fairfax counties say they arrested a suspect in the slayings of 18-year-old Amy Baker and 4032-year-old Jaqueline Lord in 1989 and 1986, respectively.
Stafford County Sheriff’s Major Shawn Kimmitz credits the excellent work of detectives from both agencies, who used DNA evidence to identify a suspect.
On November 14, 1986, Lord, was working at Mount Vernon Realty in the 300 block of Garrisonville Road. She was last seen that evening at 9 p.m. as the business closed. Lord never made it home.
The next morning, employees of other businesses in the area prepared to open for the day and discovered a crime scene at the realty office, which indicated a struggle. Lord and her vehicle were both missing. Stafford County detectives, assisted by the Virginia State Police Crime Scene Unit and the FBI processed the scene and collected blood and other evidence.
The following day, two teenagers played in a wooded area off Route 1 at Railroad Avenue in Woodbridge, about 20 miles north of the realty office. They discovered a body beneath a pile of discarded carpet. Stafford detectives joined Prince William detectives and the FBI to process the scene and identified the deceased as Lord.
Lord’s missing vehicle was located abandoned in Fairfax County on December 18, 1986, leading to the recovery of additional evidence. Over the years, detectives from multiple federal and state agencies followed up on countless leads and conducted interviews, eliminating numerous suspects and persons of interest.
The FBI created a task force combining the efforts of the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office, Prince William County Police Department, the FBI, and the DEA. DNA was extracted from the evidence, but repeated searches of the Virginia and National DNA Databanks via CODIS, in addition to direct comparisons against submitted persons of interest and familial searches, failed to identify the killer. The leads were exhausted, and the investigation was moved to cold case status.
At the order of Stafford County Sheriff David Decatur, D.K. Wood explored a new technology, forensic investigative genetic genealogy, to help identify the killer.
Wood worked with Parabon NanoLabs, a company providing DNA phenotyping. The analysis of the DNA linked the Lord’s murder to the unsolved 1989 murder of Amy Baker in Fairfax County. A Stafford resident, Baker, ran out of gas while traveling on Interstate 95 and pulled off the highway at Backlick Road in Fairfax County.
Baker met her killer while walking toward a gas station. She was raped, assaulted, and left for dead in the woods.
On December 14, 2023, identified their suspect. Detectives followed up on the leads this technology created and ultimately obtained a search warrant for DNA from Stafford County residents. In February, the Department of Forensic Science reported that the DNA matched.
On March 4, Elroy Harrison, 65, was indicted by a Stafford County Grand Jury for first-degree murder, abduction with the intent to defile, aggravated malicious wounding of Lord, as well as breaking with the intent to commit murder.
He was arrested at his Stafford County home on March 5 and placed in the Rappahannock Regional Jail without bond. Cold Case detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department are working alongside the Fairfax County Office of the Commonwealth Attorney to seek charges against Harrison for the murder of Baker’s murder.
More as we have it.
"[Blue Line Solutions, of Chatanooga, Tenn.] is showing us how they work and what type of data we would get. At this point, we are just gathering information," said Stafford Sheriff's Major Shawn Kimmitz.
It is one of multiple firms the sheriff's office works with as it tests new equipment. The cameras are not actively citing drivers during the demonstration phase.
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Updated: A quiet morning on Musselman Road in Stafford County was disrupted today when a man broke into a home just before 7 a.m. The incident has prompted a significant police presence in the area, with authorities deploying various resources including drones and K9 units to track down the suspect.
They eventually found and arrested a man in the Rappahannock Landing neighborhood. Sheriff’s Major Shawn Kimmitz said deputies took the man to the county magistrate and that the department is seeking multiple charges for the man.
The man’s name was not released.
According to reports, the man entered a residence on Musselman Road only to be confronted by the homeowner. Frightened by the encounter, the intruder quickly fled the scene on foot. Shortly after, he attempted to break into a car parked nearby, still armed with a chainsaw and a hammer.
Eyewitnesses say the suspect dropped the chainsaw during his escape, but it remains unclear if he still possesses the hammer. As law enforcement continues their search, a drone has been deployed to hover over the Olde Forge neighborhood while K9 units are on the ground tracking the suspect’s scent.
To ensure the safety of residents, particularly students waiting for school buses, authorities are closely monitoring bus stops in the area.
The suspect is described as a heavyset white male in his 30s or 40s, heavyset, wearing a brown trench coat and a flannel shirt. Residents are advised to remain vigilant and report suspicious activity by dialing 911.
