The woman who said she fatally shot two young store clerks more than 40 years ago—and got away with the murders—said on her deathbed that the lead investigator always knew she was the killer, authorities revealed at a news conference yesterday. Sharron Diane Crawford Smith told investigators the details of the double homicide in a series of interviews as she lay dying of kidney and heart failure. She said lead Staunton police investigator Davie Bocock helped her bury a .25-caliber handgun used in the murders.

Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, the suspect in a 40-year-old double homicide in Staunton, has died, authorities said. Smith died Monday about 6 p.m., said Lisa Klein, the public-information officer for the Staunton Police Department. Klein did not know Smith’s cause of death, but police have said that Smith—who had been on oxygen—was terminally ill, suffering from end-stage heart failure, chronic kidney disease, severe anemia and chronic pain.

The Kaine administration’s plan to close several mental-health centers in Virginia drew bipartisan fire yesterday from members of the House Appropriations Committee. The Department of Mental Health proposes saving $16 million by closing the Southeastern Virginia Training Center in Chesapeake, closing a center in Marion, and closing part of a center in Staunton.

A 60-year-old woman accused of killing two women in a Staunton ice cream store in 1967 is so ill that her first court appearance, set for yesterday, had to be postponed till March.

Two juvenile suspects face conspiracy charges in connection with an alleged plot to kill students and faculty at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind in Staunton.

A 60-year-old woman accused of killing two young women in a Staunton ice cream store in 1967 is so gravely ill that her first court appearance, scheduled for today, had to be postponed until March. Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, now 60, has been charged with first-degree murder for the slaying of 20-year-old Carolyn Hevener Perry and 19-year-old Constance Smootz Hevener. Smith was 19 at the time of the murders and worked part-time at the store.

The new Western State Hospital will be built in the city’s Virginia Crossroads Business Park adjacent to the current hospital, Staunton officials said. Staunton’s economic development director, Bill Hamilton, said construction on the $130 million hospital is scheduled to start next year and is expected to take at least 30 months. The construction should be finished by 2012.

Staunton’s most notorious unsolved case, the 1967 double homicide of two young women at an ice cream store, may finally be solved with the arrest of a dying 60-year-old woman. 

Staunton’s most notorious unsolved case the1967 double murder of two young women at an ice cream store may have finally been solved with the arrest of a female co-worker.

Reginald “Shay” Nicholson, 19, was shot in the head Nov. 9 at a party near James Madison University. A former high school football star from Staunton has died at the University of Virginia Medical Center, about two weeks after suffering a gunshot wound to the head. Reginald “Shay” Nicholson, 19, died Friday evening, Harrisonburg police said.

Chesterfield The John Tyler Community College board will meet at 3 p.m. Thursday at Bird Hall on the college’s Chester campus. A sign-up sheet for people who want to address the board will be available 30 minutes before the meeting. Henrico Due to the Veterans Day holiday, the Board of Supervisors will hold its next regular meeting on Wednesday at 7 p.m. A special meeting, which will include a joint work session with the Planning Commission on the 2026 Comprehensive Plan, will begin at 4:30 p.m. The Board of Supervisors regularly meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month in the Government Center Board Room, 4301 E. Parham Road. For details, call (804) 501-4318.