News

The email arrived at 9:38 a.m., shortly before Amy and I left for Roanoke and my long day with a dentist. It read:

Dear Bank of Floyd Customer,
 
      This is your official notification from Bank of Floyd, your online account has expired.     If you want to continue using our service you have to renew your online account. If not, your online account  will be deactivated and deleted.  

  To continue  click here, complete the renew form   with your current information.

    Many Thanks and Kind Regards - Bank of Floyd - Update Department

I immediately sent the message to the trash bin, recognizing it as a "phishing" expedition, an attempt by a con artist to gain access to an online bank account. We get these things all the time, sometimes claiming to be banks we actually do business with and more often "from" banks at which we've never had an account.

But some did fall for it, including area blogger David St. Lawrence, who had to close his account, open a new one and get new ATM cards.

Usually, "phishing" con jobs go to a shadow url that spoofs the original URL of a bank but this one used the url: bankofloyd.com, which looked authentic unless you looked closer and realized there was an "f" missing (it should have been bankoffloyd.com). Alert users of the Bank of Floyd's online service also know that the bank's real online banking service url is "secureinternetbanking.com."

I've done business with The Bank of Floyd long enough to know that they, like most other banks, never, ever use email for sensitive banking business. They make that fact very clear in mailings, on signs in the bank and when you open an account.  If you are an online banking customer, they send messages through the system's secure messaging center and then let you know that you a message waiting there.

David checked the registration of the "bankofloyd.com" url and found it was registered on June 6 (last Friday) by a "Ted Kaczynski" using a drop box in New York City.

Ted Kaczynski? Ted Kaczynski is the unibomber, the madman who killed three and wounded 23 with mail bombs before his arrest on April 3, 1996. He is serving life without parole at the Federal Supermax prison in Colorado.

Blame it on the heat, the water or the times. Something is generating violence among Floyd Countians.

Three weeks ago, police charged 19-year-old Pfc. George D. McConald,  from Floyd, with stabbing and killing a fellow Army recruit in his barracks at Fort Benning, GA.

A little over a week ago, Floyd County Animal Control Officer Garland Nester got mad at a cow that wouldn't budge, pulled his gun and started shooting, missed the cow and killed a neighbor who was coming to help.

Now police are seeking an 18-year-old Floyd County man suspected of gunning down 39-year-old Sean Neumann near Check.  The manhunt for Joshua Jonathan Hairston is in full swing. While driving down Alum Ridge Road Friday evening, Amy saw a cop in what looked like full western regalia walking along the road with a rifle. This came after several police cars from different jurisdictions passed her.

Commonwealth's Attorney Stephanie Shortt says domestic violence calls are up. She says the blame may lie with high gas prices which keep people home and give them more time to get on each other's nerves.

But one person killing another is rare in our part of the world. To have three Floyd Countians involved in the taking of another's life in three weeks is way off the statistical chart.

Paul Belcher of Meadows of Dan tried to help his neighbor put down a wayward cow Thursday evening and it cost him his life..

Now Floyd County animal control officer Garland "Bucky" Nester is on leave pending an investigation into how a bullet intended for his cow went astray and killed the 75-year-old Belcher.

Belcher's wife calls the death of her husband a tragic accident.  Connie Geller of the Virginia State Police says Nester was attempting to shoot one of his own cows but shot Belcher instead. Jean Belcher told Shawna Morrison of The Roanoke Times her husband went to help Nester because the cow was loose. Nester, she said, apparently didn't know Belcher was nearby when he shot at the cow with a handgun, apparently missed, and the bullet struck Belcher.

Belcher was dead when rescue squad officails arrived.

Floyd County Sheriff Shannon Zeman told us Friday that he asked the Virginia State Police to handle the investigation, a normal procedure when a county employee is involved in a shooting.

(Updated June 2, 2008, to correct Paul Belcher's name.)

Floyd County High School's Lady Buff softball team lost a close one, 8-7, to Grayson County in Galax Tuesday to end their 2008 season.

Details of the game will be published in The Floyd Press.

With gas prices at an all-time high and an uneasy economy, the pathways along Hillsville's Memorial Day Flea Market were largely empty by the Monday holiday although vendors said they had a "fair' crowd on Saturdays.  Many vendors said they hope the economy improves before the big Labor Day Gun Show and Flea Market.

Lemons Jewelry, a fixture on Locust Street in downtown Floyd, is closing. Store officials have notified the building owner that they expect to close by the end of June and the store closing sale includes inventory and fixtures. Other Lemons stores are not closing -- just the Floyd location. The word around town is that three businesses are in trouble and may close. Is Lemons the first of three?

By the time the multiple jurisdictions in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina sort out the various charges against Floyd Countian Steven Dale Branscome (right), the 32-year-old man will probably spent what's left of his life behind bars.

At a hearing Friday in Princeton, West Virginia, a judge certified Branscome case to a grand jury on charges of malicious wounding, wanton endangerment and burglary. Other charges are pending in Virginia and North Carolina.

It will be a sad but fitting ending for the grandson of a popular former sheriff of Floyd County and the object of a manhunt that turned the county into an armed camp for a week while hundreds of cops from multiple jurisdictions manned road blocks, cruised the roads in an armored vehicle and searched the countryside for a fugitive who was long gone by midweek and headed for Mexico.

Branscome is charged with shooting a Virginia State Trooper after a chase ended in West Virginia. When you shoot a cop, the gloves come off and the normal rules don't apply. Law enforcement from around the state swarmed into Floyd County after a Sheriff's investigator spotted Branscome in Indian Valley. The weeklong chase ended in a motel near Texarkana when Texas Rangers and Federal Marshals cornered the fugitive.

West Virginia officials originally charged Branscome with malicious wounding of a police officers but his lawyers found loophole that said such a charge must involve a "West Virginia" cop so the judge reduced the charge to just malicious wounding. But a grand jury could still decide to reinstate the original charge.

Floyd County Supervisors have asked Sheriff Shannon Zeman for an accounting of what the massive manhunt cost local government. Zeman's preliminary report said the State Police will pay most of the cost and more information is expected when Supervisors meet next week.

Writes Shawna Morrison in The Roanoke Times:

Officials have said Branscome will likely be charged in Virginia with grand larceny and other crimes and in North Carolina with charges related to two stolen vehicles.

He is being tried first in West Virginia where he faces the more serious charges.

Before Hughes' shooting, Branscome was already wanted on several outstanding warrants in Virginia.

In Wythe County, he was wanted in connection with burglaries and thefts at a home and business.

He was wanted in Pulaski County on a charge of communicating threats to kill. And in Floyd County he was wanted on a probation violation.

Tim Jackson pulled the plug last week -- at least for the time being -- on the print edition of The New River Voice.

Launched eight months ago with a lot of hope, NRV worked to provide a regional paper that combined news, social commentary and entertainment reporting. Built on the "give the paper away free and support the whole thing with ads" model that made City Paper founder Russ Smith a millionaire in the Washington and Baltimore markets, NRV attracted about 15,000 readers to the print edition but not enough advertisers to pay the bills, much less give Jackson and his partner a living.

He gave us a heads up a few weeks ago, saying two more editions would be printed before shutting down that part of the operation. Tim hoped for a last-minute bailout and perhaps a buyer.

Didn't happen. In Friday's edition, Tim wrote:

When we began this publication eight months ago, I was wide-eyed and optimistic with a desire to lead the charge for progressive thought in the New River Valley. I thought the best way to do this was to print a free publication that would be distributed to thousands of people across the valley. And that’s exactly what we did. Our readership is somewhere around the 15,000 mark for our print publication and I would like to thank all who have ever picked up a copy of the Voice. And I know that’s a lot of you.

But in a sluggish economy and with essentially no advertising sales representatives to speak of, it just doesn’t make financial sense to continue publishing a print version. I appreciate the advertisers we have had, and I hope you will continue to support us. The fact is, however, that we’ve lost money on almost every issue of the New River Voice. And we’re not some huge corporation. We’re just a couple poor working folks trying to make a difference. In fact, my accountant is chagrined that we kept it going this long.

But we’re not finished yet. Our print product is going away—at least for now. If we can line up sufficient support and sign up advertisers to some long-term contracts, we might be back in print. But for now, we want you to continue keeping up with the progressive news and views and the best reviews that the NRV has to offer—online.

As Tim said, NRV will continue online and may return one day as a print publication. We hope it does. The Voice deserved a better fate. (Cover illustration courtesy of The New River Voice)

Earth Day festivities at Floyd County High School Saturday. Doors open at 9 a.m. and Fred First kicks things off at 9:30 with one of his slide presentations.

Demonstrations and vendors and coffee and snacks (we're checking to make sure the coffee cups and all the snack wrappers are bio-degradable).

See you there.

One of the Floyd County Sheriff's Department investigators who worked closely with the Virginia State Police tactical teams said today that the three fatigue-clad state troopers I overheard bragging about scaring county residents and referring to local police officers as "Barney Fifes" were not members of the tactical teams.

All state troopers assigned to Floyd County during the weeklong search for Steven Dale Branscome, accused of shooting at Virginia State Trooper after a chase that ended in West Virginia, wore fatigues but not all were members of the force's tactical teams.

I have confirmed that the three officers I overheard were not members of the tactical teams.

My apologies to the tactical teams for incorrectly identifying the officers as members of their units.  I'm glad to hear they were more professional than the officers I encountered on that day in the Blue Ridge Resturant.