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KILLER'S ASHES ARE REMOVED FROM ARLINGTON --
Arlington National Cemetery has removed the
ashes
of double-murderer Russell Wayne Wagner.
Story here...
http://www.herald-mail.com/?
module=displaystory&story_id=155435&format=html
Story below:
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Killer's ashes are removed from Arlington
by ANDREW SCHOTZ
andrews@herald-mail.com
HAGERSTOWN - Arlington National Cemetery removed the ashes of Hagerstown
double-murderer Russell Wayne Wagner on Friday and delivered them to his
sister, the cemetery's superintendent said Tuesday.
The eviction ends a successful year-and-a-half crusade by Vernon Davis
of Hagerstown, whose parents Wagner murdered in 1994.
Hoping to see the ashes removed, Davis went to the cemetery Friday, but
he wasn't given any details and left after several hours. When he
returned Saturday morning, the ashes were gone.
Still, "I'm pretty well satisfied," Davis said Tuesday.
Wagner died in prison last year while serving life sentences for
murdering Daniel and Wilda Davis in their home on West Wilson Boulevard
in Hagerstown on Feb. 14, 1994.
When The Herald-Mail reported in August 2005 that Wagner's sister, Karen
Anderson of Silver Spring, Md., had his ashes placed at Arlington
National Cemetery based on his military service, it quickly became a
national story.
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, the
chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, pressed for
removal of the ashes.
Davis and Mikulski testified at a Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing.
The movement led to a law that prohibits all veterans convicted of
capital crimes from being eligible for burial, interment or inurnment at
a national cemetery.
A separate bill specifically calling for Wagner's ashes to be evicted
from Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia passed the Senate, but not
the House.
Craig later tucked the same provision to evict Wagner's ashes into a
$3.2 billion veterans' health care and benefits bill. The House and
Senate passed the bill in the waning hours of their 2006 session.
President Bush signed the bill into law Dec. 22.
Mikulski reaction
Mikulski's office hadn't heard that Wagner's ashes were taken out of the
cemetery until contacted Tuesday by The Herald-Mail.
In an e-mail released by her communications director, Melissa Schwartz,
Mikulski said: "The removal of Russell Wagner's ashes closes this tragic
chapter for the Davis family. My promises made to the Davis family were
promises kept, and I am so proud to have not only helped them but to
have created a law to ensure that nothing like this will ever happen
again."
That law, based on a bill Mikulski and Craig cosponsored, closes a
loophole that allowed Wagner to qualify for inurnment at Arlington
National Cemetery. Bush signed that bill into law in January 2006.
Previously, a person whose remains might end up at a national cemetery
because of military service would be disqualified if convicted of a
capital crime and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In 2002, Washington County Circuit Judge Frederick C. Wright III
sentenced Wagner to consecutive life terms in prison with the
possibility of parole.
Wright said at the time that the parole condition probably didn't make a
difference because it's rarely granted on the first try. "So, that puts
him in his 80s, if he lives that long, or his 90s, if he lives that
long," Wright said during the sentencing.
Wagner died of a heroin overdose in 2005 in the Maryland House of
Correction Annex in Jessup. He was 52.
After the state cremated Wagner's body, Anderson had the remains placed
at Arlington. The ashes were placed in a columbarium July 27, 2005, with
standard military honors.
The cemetery was not told of Wagner's criminal history, Thurman
Higginbotham, the cemetery's deputy superintendent, has said.
Wagner's remains were eligible to be placed at the cemetery because he
served three years with the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged in
1972.
John C. Metzler Jr., the cemetery's superintendent, said Higginbotham
delivered the urn containing Wagner's ashes to Anderson on Friday.
Reached at home Tuesday, Anderson declined to comment.
Davis said he and his family visited the cemetery for several hours
Friday, but were told by Higginbotham only that the removal would happen
before the end of the year.
The next morning, Davis returned, but the ashes were gone. He said he
noticed indentations in the ground from a step ladder, indicating that
someone had climbed up to get the urn.
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Larry Scott
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