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Local week in review

Local week in review

Date published: 12/4/2005

Long-awaited school opens

Stafford County's 16th elementary school opened Monday, several months into the school year. Awaiting the school's opening, Conway Elementary students attended classes at a nearby Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and at Falmouth and Grafton Elementary schools. The $13.2 million, 88,000-square-foot school was supposed to be completed by Aug. 15, but poor weather and a later-than-usual project start pushed the date back by several months.

Virginia Department of Transportation officials said they would take another look at a Spotsylvania intersection where one teen died in a wreck and two others were seriously injured. Danielle N. Wallace, 16, a student at Chancellor High School, was killed Nov. 23 when the car she was riding in apparently made a left turn off State Route 3 west on to Gordon Road and was struck by an eastbound vehicle. There have been at least 54 crashes at the intersection this year.

Toll Brothers Inc. is poised to sell 75 acres of Chancellorsville battleground on State Route 3 to the Civil War Preservation Trust. The sale hinges on Spotsylvania County supervisors increasing the number of homes the company can build on about 500 adjacent acres. An attorney for Toll Brothers said the company will sell the 75 acres to the trust at a "substantially below-market" price but declined to state the specific amount. The land is where Union and Confederate forces fought on the first day of the Battle of Chancellorsville.

A Stafford County man faces a life sentence after admitting that he killed his live-in girlfriend while their two small children listened in a near by room. James Anthony Johnson, 27, pleaded guilty last week to first-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Johnson killed 26-year-old Tomeka M. Childs the morning of Feb. 22 during an argument at a home they shared in southern Stafford. He will be sentenced Feb. 6.

An inmate was sentenced to 29 years in prison for attacking a Louisa County sheriff's deputy who was transporting him to the Rappahannock Regional Jail. Horace Lavigne Jr., 32, attacked Deputy Ed Browder outside the jail Dec. 20 after Browder stopped to let the inmate smoke. The deputy fought off an attempt to get his gun, but ended up needing 17 stitches for a wound to the face.

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Date published: 12/4/2005