Monthly Archive for August, 2007

Page 3 of 4

County Declares Drought

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 16, 2007 in Weather. 71 Comments

Following the recommendation of the RWSA, Albemarle County today issued a drought warning declaration, the county has announced in a press release this afternoon. The county cites “especially dry conditions in the last 6 out of 7 months causing dangerously low water levels.” With this comes restrictions, including washing cars at home, washing outdoor surfaces, watering outside vegetation with anything other than a watering can, running an ornamental fountain, filling swimming pools and, bizarrely, serving water to restaurant patrons unless they request it.

Let’s hope we don’t end up going down the same absurd path we went down in 2002, with drinking fountains and bathroom sinks being turned off. Drinking and hygiene are the two essential functions for which water is conserved at times like this. There’s no sense in restricting those.

Rapist Arrest Based on DNA Evidence

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 16, 2007 in Law and Justice. 18 Comments

Nathan Antonio Washington was arrested on the basis of DNA evidence, commonwealth’s attorney Jim Camblos told the Daily Progress today. Given that his DNA is a match to two attacks, and those two attacks were a DNA match to the rest of the rapes, it’s now quite clear why Washington was arrested earlier this week and what cause there is to suspect him to be the serial rapist. Law enforcement officials had previously declined to explain how they came to decide upon arresting Washington. He waived his first scheduled court appearance today, a bond hearing, but he’s due back in court next week.

Arrest in the Serial Rapist Case

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 13, 2007 in Crime and Law and Justice. 81 Comments

There’s been the first real break in the serial rapist case. The Hook broke the story that jibes with the information I’ve been getting over the past couple of hours. A suspect was arrested this morning. He’s married, lives in Woodbrook, and works at Harris Teeter. With a decade of consistent, solid DNA evidence in the case, it should be a snap to determine whether he’s the guy. There will be a joint city/county press conference at 4pm to provide details.

12:55pm Update: CBS 19 reports that the suspect is 40-year-old Nathan Antonio Washington of Old Brook Road. He’s been charged only in the August 2004 attack.

1:20pm Update: Regular commenter “Stormy” writes to point out that while CBS 19 names Washington in their story, they stop short of actually saying that he’s the suspect in the serial rapes. That was my inference as a reader, because it would be pretty random to name some unrelated guy in such an article. Anyhow, we’ll all have to hold onto our collective hat until 4pm to find out whether Washington’s arrest on the August 2004 rape charges is one and the same as the arrest of the serial rapist.

5:15pm Update: Well, the press conference was every bit as frustrating as police warned it would be. There’s basically no new information. They arrested Tony Washington shortly after midnight, and they’ve charged him with two of the rapes. Previously about all that police could say was that there was a DNA match on all of the rapes, but at the press conference they refused to even confirm that, saying only that Washington is a suspect in the other cases. This is going to leave media outlets torn: do they report that the serial rapist has been caught, or do they toe the cautious line drawn by law enforcement? NBC 29’s 2001 legendary gaffe — accusing some poor guy of possessing cocaine and then refusing to run a correction — surely stands out as a stark warning of what not to do.

STAB Student Dies of Brain Hemorrhage

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 7, 2007 in General News. 5 Comments

In today’s Progress, Rob Seal writes about the strange, sudden death of STAB student Douglas Wardle last week. The rising senior and class president to be was in Nicaragua, building houses for the poor, when he suffered a brain hemorrhage, out of the blue, and died. The school reports that dozens of kids have expressed interest in honoring Wardle by participating in the house-building program next summer.

CBS Publicizes Anonymous Gang Letter

Published by Waldo Jaquith on August 7, 2007 in Crime and Meta News. 62 Comments

CBS-19 got an anonymous, unauthenticatable comment on their website from somebody claiming to be in on these random attacks around downtown, with the pseuodnym “Chaos.” A useless lead from a random kook? No, a useless lead from a famous random kook: CBS-19 did a story about it. They even showed the missive to police, who had no comment…but still they ran the story.

If I comment on their site with a goofy nickname, claiming that I kidnapped the Lindbergh baby, maybe they’ll do a story about that, too.

Sideblog