Article

1968

Events that took place in Fairfax County in 1968:

January

• January 1 – 24-year-old Donald C. Pruett is found lying in the westbound lane of Route 29-211 in Fairfax with severe head injuries. Pruett is taken to Fairfax Hospital, where he dies about 10 hours later.^[1][2]
• January 4 – George A. Simpson is elected chairman of the Fairfax County Planning Commission and William S. Hoofnagle is elected chairman of the Fairfax County School Board.^[3]
• January 5 – 26-year-old Greta Lee Sprinkle is sentenced to 10 years in prison by Judge Barnard F. Jennings for the murder of her husband Billy in the couple's home at 7117 Byrneley Lane in Annandale on January 12, 1966.^[4]
• January 8 – 2½-year-old Allegra Shuldiner falls through the ice covering Lake Anne and drowns in Reston.^[5]
• January 10 – While searching for the body of 2½-year-old Allegra Shuldiner in Lake Anne in Reston, 30-year-old Fairfax County firefighter Earl W. Kane is separated from his dive buddy and suffers a fatal attack of hemorrhagic tracheal bronchitis, essentially drowning in his own blood.^[5][6]

February

• February 3 – 42-year-old Robert M. Snapp shoots and mortally wounds his 38-year-old estranged wife Betty outside his home at 2801 Fort Drive in Alexandria. She is taken to the Alexandria Hospital, where she dies the next day.^[7][8]
• February 20 – 19-year-old Wiley M. Blevins pleads guilty to second-degree murder for beating 67-year-old Charlie Nicholson to death in the Blevinstown area of Fairfax on February 5, 1967.^[9]

March

• March 20 – 8-year-old David Gray suffers a fractured skull when a burning tree falls on him near his home in Alexandria. The injured boy is taken by ambulance to DeWitt Army Hospital at Fort Belvoir and later transferred to Walter Reed, where he dies.^[10]

April

• April 2 – 58-year-old Lois C. Miniclier is thrown from her car and killed when it overturns on the Capital Beltway near Franconia Road when she swerves to avoid another car. Miniclier us taken to Alexandria Hospital, where she is pronounced dead at 9:06 a.m.^[11]
• April 2 – 3-year-old John D. Fox dies in a fire in a hay barn on the family property in Herndon. The fire was set by his 5-year-old brother Charles, who was playing with some matches.^[12][13]
• April 2 – 21-year-old Avery L. Hammond is fatally injured when he crashes into a tree in the front yard of 3209 Elmwood Drive in the Burgundy Village neighborhood of Alexandria. Hammond is pulled from the burning car by a passerby and taken to Alexandria Hospital, where he dies about an hour later.^[14]
• April 4 – Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Earl C. Funderburk imposes a ban on all field trips to Washington, D.C., because of rioting in the city following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.^[15]
• April 6 – The first Roy Rogers Western Roast Beef Sandwich restaurant formally opens at the intersection of Leesburg Pike and South Carlyn Springs Road in the Bailey's Crossroads region of Falls Church.^[16]

May

• May 1 – 42-year-old Robert M. Snapp is convicted of manslaughter for shooting his estranged wife Betty outside his house at 2801 Fort Drive in Alexandria on February 3.^[17]
• May 8 – The operation to move the Dranesville Tavern near Herndon to preserve it from the widening of Leesburg Pike begins, but is halted when the structure begins to sag.^[18]
• May 29 – 30-year-old Barbara A. Smith, a stenographer at the Fairfax County Police Department's Annandale substation, dies at the Fairfax Hospital from complications following a botched abortion.^[19][20] On a recommendation from Fairfax County Police Captain Olin F. Sanders, Smith had been taken to a motel on Route 1 in Alexandria by Calvin D. Hammersley, where she paid $500 to 25-year-old Benjamin T. Brown to perform an abortion on her.^[20][21] Brown's medical expertise apparently consisted of performing janitorial duties as an orderly at the Alexandria Hospital, from where he had recently been fired.^[20] Smith returned to her home in Herndon where she lived with her husband and children and collapsed before being taken to the hospital.^[20]

June

• The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors appoints George J. Kelley, Jr. as deputy county executive. Kelley was previously a consultant who wrote a report for the board suggesting a number of reforms to the way the county government was run, and the Board hired him to carry out those reforms.^[22]
• June 1 – After serving only two months of his term on the Circuit Court, Judge John C. Testerman resigns from the bench for personal reasons.^[23]
• June 3 – A special three-judge court empaneled to decide the annexation suit of the City of Falls Church votes 2-1 to deny the city's proposed annexation of roughly 200 acres of Fairfax County.^[24]
• June 6 – While walking across a softball field, 14-year-old McLean High School freshman Andrew Gaines is struck and mortally injured by a falling pole vault standard. One of the three-inch spikes welded to the 15-foot high pole pierces Andrew's skull, and he is taken to Fairfax Hospital, where he dies about 36 hours later.^[25][26]
• June 7 – Fairfax County Police Captain Olin F. Sanders resigns from the department after being charged as an accessory in the botched abortion that resulted in the death of 30-year-old police stenographer Barbara A. Smith on May 28.^[19]
• June 8 – Three-year-old Todd P. Rowan drowns in Lake Barcroft in Falls Church when he falls off a pier behind his home at 3545 Pinetree Terrace.^[27]

July

• July 2 – 40-year-old former Fairfax County Police Captain Olin F. Sanders pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge of encouraging an abortion for his role in the botched abortion that killed 30-year-old police stenographer Barbara A. Smith on May 29 and is fined $100 by Judge Donald C. Crounse.^[28]
• July 25 – 17-year-old Frank Koerner is stabbed to death with a bayonet by 21-year-old James D. Stover at the Langley Esso service station at 801 Dolley Madison Boulevard in McLean.^[29]
• July 26 – 31-year-old James F. Clark is shot to death by his wife's boyfriend, 48-year-old Pendleton R. Wilson, outside Wilson's home at 7606 Long Pine Drive in Springfield.^[30]

August

• August 12 – Governor Mills E. Godwin appoints Burch Millsap to the bench of the 16th Judicial Circuit Court to replace John C. Testerman, who unexpectedly resigned after serving only two months of his eight year term.^[31]
• August 31 – 15-year-old Frank A. Riley, Jr. drowns while swimming in a pond north of Herndon.^[32][33]

September

• September 24 – While walking along Routes 29-211 near Centreville, 76-year-old Maurice P. Smith is fatally injured when he is struck by a car driven by 19-year-old Roy E. Shiflett. Smith is taken to Fairfax Hospital, where he is pronounced dead.^[34]

October

• October 2 – Fairfax County Attorney Dexter S. Odin announces his resignation, effective January 1, 1969.^[35]
• October 18 – 16-year-old Stewart A. Mason is killed when the car he is riding in skids on wet pavement and hits a tree on Morningside Lane in Alexandria.^[36]
• October 20 – 18-year-old Marshall J. Thompson, Jr. is killed when the car he is riding in strikes a guardrail on the Dulles Access Road in Herndon. Thompson is dead on arrival at Fairfax Hospital^[36]
• October 22 – Circuit Court Judge Arthur W. Sinclair names Richard J. Jamborsky as an associate judge of the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.^[37]

November

• November 3 – 37-year-old Randolph Williams dies in a fire in his two-room trailer at 3110 Sherwood Hall Lane in the Gum Springs area of Alexandria.^[38]
• November 4 – 48-year-old Pendleton R. Wilson is convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting 31-year-old James F. Clark outside Wilson's Springfield home on July 26.^[39]
• November 5 – 17-year-old Kirby A. Pee and 18-year-old Vincent A. Wright attack and overpower Fairfax County Police officer Charles Byrd, stealing his service revolver, as he tries to arrest them in Lorton.^[40][41][42]
• November 27 – 27-year-old Freda J. Macatee dies in a car crash at the intersection of routes 28 and 50 in Chantilly.^[43]

Crime

60 people were killed in traffic crashes in Fairfax County in 1968, including 12 pedestrians.^[44]

References

1. ↑ "Man Found Injured On Fairfax Road Dies." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jan 02 1968. ProQuest. Web. 7 Jan. 2018.
2. ↑ "Man's Death Under Probe In Fairfax" Evening Star, 2 Jan. 1968, Three Star NIGHT FINAL, p. 29. NewsBank, . Accessed 7 Jan. 2018.
3. ↑ Yenckel, James T. "Key Fairfax Post Goes to Babson Man." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jan 06 1968. ProQuest. Web. 1 Aug. 2014.
4. ↑ "Wife Given 10 Years in Death of Husband." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jan 06 1968. ProQuest. Web. 1 Aug. 2014.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Auerbach, Stuart. "Diver Dies Under Ice in Reston Hunt." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 2. Jan 11 1968. ProQuest. Web. 21 Aug. 2014.
6. ↑ "Death of Diver at Reston Laid to Respiratory Ailment"Evening Star, 11 Jan. 1968, Three Star NIGHT FINAL, p. 26. NewsBank. Accessed 5 Jan. 2018.
7. ↑ "Wife Dies of Shooting." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Feb 05 1968. ProQuest. Web. 20 Aug. 2014.
8. ↑ "Man Convicted in Wife's Death." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. May 03 1968. ProQuest. Web. 5 Jan. 2017.
9. ↑ "Youth Pleads Guilty in Man's Death." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973), Feb 21 1968, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 18 Sep. 2018.
10. ↑ "Burning Tree Falls, Kills Fairfax Boy, 8." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Mar 22 1968. ProQuest. Web. 31 July 2016 .
11. ↑ "McLean Woman Killed on Beltway" Evening Star, 3 Apr. 1968, Three Star NIGHT FINAL, p. 31. NewsBank. Accessed 26 Dec. 2017.
12. ↑ "Boy, 3, Dies in Fire Set by Brother, 5." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Apr 03 1968. ProQuest. Web. 3 May 2014.
13. ↑ "Herndon Boy, 3, Killed in Barn Fire As Roof Collapses." Evening Star, 3 Apr. 1968, Three Star NIGHT FINAL, p. 31. NewsBank. Accessed 26 Dec. 2017.
14. ↑ "Driver Killed As Car Burns After Crash." Evening Star, 3 Apr. 1968, Three Star NIGHT FINAL, p. 31. NewsBank. Accessed 26 Dec. 2017.
15. ↑ "Suburb and State: Fairfax Lifts Ban on Pupil Trips to City." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Apr 24 1968. ProQuest. Web. 18 Jan. 2014.
16. ↑ Goodman, S. Oliver. "First Rogers Restaurant." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Apr 04 1968. ProQuest. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.
17. ↑ "Man Convicted in Wife's Death." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. May 03 1968. ProQuest. Web. 20 Aug. 2014.
18. ↑ Gorska, Fifi. "Big Dig"Evening Star, 11 May 1968, Two Star, p. 31. NewsBank. Accessed 26 Jul. 2018.
19. ↑ ^{19.0 19.1} "Area Police Captain Charged." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jun 08 1968. ProQuest. Web. 27 Dec. 2013.
20. ↑ ^{20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3} Yenckel, James T. "Trial Told 'Doctor' was Custodian." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jun 26 1968. ProQuest. Web. 27 Dec. 2013.
21. ↑ "Court Gets Abortion Guilty Plea." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Mar 14 1969. ProQuest. Web. 27 Dec. 2013.
22. ↑ Curry, William N. "Ex-Deputy Promoted by County." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): B1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1995). Sep 24 1970. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.
23. ↑ Yenckel, James T. "Judge for 2 Months Resigns." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jun 02 1968. ProQuest. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.
24. ↑ Associated Press. "Court Rejects Falls Church Annexation." The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, VA] 3 June 1968: 3. Google News Archive. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.
25. ↑ "Suburb and State: McLean Accident." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973), Jun 07 1968, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 9 Aug. 2018.
26. ↑ Curry, William Nye. "When King School can do no Wrong." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973), Dec 23 1971, p. 2. ProQuest. Web. 9 Aug. 2018.
27. ↑ "Boy, 3, Drowns Behind Home in Lake Barcroft." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jun 09 1968. ProQuest. Web. 9 Feb. 2017.
28. ↑ Yenckel, James T. "Ex-Policeman is Fined $100." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jul 03 1968. ProQuest. Web. 27 Dec. 2013. Note: Sanders is misidentified in this article as "Lincoln F. Sanders".
29. ↑ McLaughlin, Maurine. "Youth Tells Fairfax Jury of Brawl." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Jan 16 1969. ProQuest. Web. 19 Aug. 2014.
30. ↑ "Springfield Man is Held in Shooting." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): B3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1995). Jul 29 1968. Web. 7 Feb. 2012.
31. ↑ Klose, Kevin. "Falls Church Lawyer Named to Circuit Court." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Aug 13 1968. ProQuest. Web. 31 Dec. 2013
32. ↑ "Fairfax Youth Loses Life in Herndon Pond." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Sep 01 1968. ProQuest. Web. 1 Jan. 2018.
33. ↑ "Fairfax Youth, 15, Drowns in Lake" Evening Star, 2 Sep. 1968, Two Star Holiday, p. 29. NewsBank, . Accessed 1 Jan. 2018.
34. ↑ "Centreville Man is Killed by Auto." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Sep 26 1968. ProQuest. Web. 5 Jan. 2018.
35. ↑ Yenckel, James T. "Fairfax's Lawyer Quits $23,000 Job." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Oct 03 1968.ProQuest. Web. 25 Aug. 2016.
36. ↑ ^{36.0 36.1} "Car Skids into Tree; Fairfax Youth Killed." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Oct 20 1968. ProQuest. Web. 5 Jan. 2018.
37. ↑ Stout, Jared. "Fairfax Adds 2d Judge to Youth Court." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Oct 23 1968. ProQuest. Web. 5 Jan. 2018.
38. ↑ "Blaze Kills Man, Destroys Trailer" Evening Star, 4 Nov. 1968, Stocks Final, p. 7. NewsBank. Accessed 26 Dec. 2017.
39. ↑ Klose, Kevin. "Wilson Gets 3 Years for Slaying Rival." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): 1. Nov 05 1968. ProQuest. Web. 5 Jan. 2018.
40. ↑ "Policeman Beaten by Escaping Pair." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): C2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1995). Nov 06 1968. Web. 18 Feb. 2012.
41. ↑ "Arlington Youth Held in Attack on Policeman." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): C15. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1995). Nov 07 1968. Web. 18 Feb. 2012.
42. ↑ "2d Youth Held After Attack on Policeman." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): D11. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1995). Dec 08 1968. Web. 18 Feb. 2012.
43. ↑ "Manassas Woman Dies in Truck-Car Crash." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973): C9. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1995). Nov 29 1968. Web. 18 Feb. 2012.
44. ↑ Griffiths, Harriet. "401 Area Traffic Deaths Last Year Set Record" Evening Star, 3 Jan. 1969, Four Star Stocks Final, p. 24. NewsBank. Accessed 7 Jan. 2018.

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Fairfax County by Year
1967	·	1968	·	1969

Fractured Fairfax is Copyright © 2011 – 2017 by Chuck Hoffmann