Two slain after trying to check on loved ones

APPOMATTOX — A man and his daughter’s teenage boyfriend became victims in Tuesday's mass shooting when they went to check on loved ones they suspected were at the gunman's home.

Melissa Stallard, the sister of 43-year-old shooting victim Jonathan L. Quarles, says she learned details from an investigator of her brother’s killing, which came after he left home to find his wife and daughter. The account explains part of the chronology of the rampage in which eight people were killed.

In a scenario eerily similar to last year’s quadruple homicide in Farmville, Quarles left his Appomattox County home Tuesday with 16-year-old Ronald I. "Bo" Scruggs II to check on Quarles’ wife and teenage daughter.

Quarles and Scruggs, his daughter’s boyfriend, were gunned down a short time later at the Snapps Mill Road home, where authorities would also find the bodies of Quarles’ wife, Karen, and their daughter, Emily, and four others .

Karen Quarles had gone there earlier with 15-year-old Emily to take her friend Morgan L. Dobyns home. Dobyns, also 15, had spent Monday night at the Quarles’ home.

Dobyns lived about 3 ½ miles away in the home on Snapps Mill Road with her family and her uncle, Christopher B. Speight, the suspect in the killings.

Scruggs had been dropped off at the Quarles home by his sister that morning to see Emily, his girlfriend.

After Karen and Emily were gone longer than expected, Jonathan Quarles told his twin brother, Jeff Quarles, that he was leaving to check on them, and he drove to the house with Scruggs, Stallard said.

Stallard, her narration interrupted at times by silence and tears, described a phone conversation she had yesterday with Appomattox Sheriff’s Capt. Todd Craft, the chief deputy.

Craft described to Stallard the situation that existed at the rustic homestead after Jonathan Quarles and Scruggs arrived. Late last night, Craft confirmed that Stallard’s description of their conversation was accurate. He declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.

When Jonathan Quarles and Scruggs arrived at the house on Snapps Mill Road, the bodies of Karen Quarles and Dobyns were on the front porch. The 43-year-old mother and 15-year-old high school student would have been visible from the roadway, Craft told Stallard.

Authorities believe Scruggs got out of the vehicle and was shot beside it, Craft told Stallard. Jonathan Quarles turned to run but was shot in the back and in the back of the head. He was found wounded in the road and flown to Lynchburg General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators found Emily Quarles’ body in the vehicle that she, her mother and Dobyns had driven to Speight’s residence, Craft told Stallard.

After investigators were summoned to the home about noon Tuesday, they discovered the three other victims inside the house: Speight’s sister, Lauralee Sipe, 38, who was Morgan’s mother; Sipe’s husband, Dwayne S. Sipe, 38; and their 4-year-old son, Joshua Sipe.

Stallard said it remained unclear why Karen Quarles was found on the front porch with Dobyns. Under normal circumstances, Stallard believes, it would have been unnecessary for Quarles to walk the 15-year-old girl up to the door.

"There’s some reason why Karen went to the door and Emily stayed in the car," Stallard said.

Stallard was crushed to lose her brother, whom the family called St. John because he was so caring, she said. A power lifter and animal lover, he ran a lawn-care business and sometimes tended the yards of elderly widows, refusing payment, his sister said.

Before her conversation with Craft, Stallard said the family had been anxious for information. "We were just all trying to figure out what happened," she said last night. "We were up last night, just crying and talking."

The fact that Jonathan Quarles and Scruggs were killed after they went to check on missing loved ones is reminiscent of the September homicides in the Farmville home of Longwood University professor Debra S. Kelley.

Kelley’s estranged husband, Appomattox church pastor Mark Niederbrock, told his mother Sept. 17 he was leaving to check on his daughter Emma Niederbrock, 16, and her friend, Melanie Wells, 18.

Authorities found Mark Niederbrock’s body the next day, along with those of Kelley, Emma Niederbrock and Wells. All four victims were bludgeoned.

A California man, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, a fan of horrorcore music who had been visiting Emma Niederbrock after meeting her online, faces capital murder charges in the killings.