1974
Events that took place in Fairfax County in 1974:
Contents
January
- January 2 – 19-year-old John K. Riffe commits suicide after exchanging gunfire with and wounding Fairfax County Police Officer James Nagler at Riffe's family home at 3912 Rive Drive in Mount Vernon.[1][2]
- January 4 – The body of 19-year-old Walter C. Moore, Jr., of Norristown, Pennsylvania, is found on the shoulder of the Shirley Highway near Backlick Road in Springfield. Fairfax County medical examiner Claude E. Cooper determines that Moore died of a shotgun blast to his chest.[3]
February
- February 2 – 21-year-old Arthur J. Jett is found shot to death at the vacant home at 3536 Moncure Avenue in Baileys Crossroads.[4]
- February 4 – 50-year-old George M. Fones burns to death in the fire that destroys his home at 7830 Magarity Road in the Pimmit Hills neighborhood of Falls Church.[5]
- February 13 – 5-year-old Jeffrey D. Younce drowns in a small pond on Lawyers Road in Vienna.[6]
- February 25 – The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors votes 7-2 to continue the emergency ban on county consideration of new zoning applications for a wide number of categories, including apartments, industrial complexes, rezonings, subdivisions, and town houses, for up to 18 months.[7]
March
- March 11 – Bill G. Evans, a management consultant with the firm of Cresap, McCormick and Paget, delivers a highly critical report on the Fairfax County Police Department to the Board of Supervisors.[8]
April
- April 27 – 26-year-old Fairfax County Police officer Jerry S. Jordan shoots himself in the chest at his apartment at 5600 Bloomfield Drive in Alexandria. Jordan is taken to the Inova Alexandria Hospital, where he is pronounced dead.[9]
May
- May 26 – While attending services with the recently organized King of Kings Lutheran Church, 3-year-old Scott D. Birdsong is killed at the Greenbriar West Elementary School in Fairfax when a heavy table falls on top of him. Birdsong is taken to Commonwealth Doctors Hospital, where he is pronounced dead.[10]
July
- July 3 – 24-year-old Ellen G. Ryan and her in-laws, 59-year-old John P. Ryan and 58-year-old Alice D. Ryan, are killed when Ryan's 26-year-old husband David turns into the path of a tractor-trailer driven by 36-year-old Rome W. Brittingham at the intersection of Southampton Drive and Braddock Road in Springfield.[11][12]
August
- August 22 – 26-year-old Felix K. Rorls is shot to death by Fairfax County Police Officer John R. Mueller at a 7-Eleven in Herndon. Rorl's death precipitates a civil disturbance centered around the nearby Dulles Park Shopping Center, with a crowd estimated at 300 people breaking windows and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. 75 officers of the FCPD, the Herndon Police Department, and the U. S. Park police are called in to deal with the situation, which is defused by negotiations by police officials, Acting County Executive Douglas Harman, and Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan, Jr..[13]
September
- Fairfax County agrees to buy 50 acres of land in Reston from Gulf-Reston. The land will eventually become the site of the North County Government Center, Reston Regional Library, the Fairfax County Police Department's Reston District Station, Cameron Glen Care Center, and a Sunrise Senior Assisted Living Center.[14]
- September 12 – Confronted with conflicting testimony from 10 witnesses over a five-hour hearing, a seven-member Fairfax Circuit Court grand jury headed by former supervisor C. Meade Stull declares that Fairfax County Police Officer John R. Muller's fatal shooting of 26-year-old Felix K. Rorls in a Herndon 7-Eleven on August 22 was a justifiable homicide.[15]
October
- October 10 – 17-year-old Robert Jewell shoots 16-year-old Alan L. Shelor to death when Shelor foolishly brings a set of nunchucks to a gunfight.[16] Shelor, one of many of youths at Falls Church High School who often taunted Jewell for his complexion problems, had challenged Jewell to fight. When Jewell shows up, rather than risk a beating from the nunchucks Shelor is flaunting, he shoots Shelor once in the stomach with a .45 caliber pistol, then chases him through the yards of several more homes in the Falls Church neighborhood before finally shooting him two more times.[17]
- October 18 – 34-year-old Renee Lotito drowns in the Potomac River at Great Falls.[18] Lotito's body is recovered on October 27.[19]
- October 22 – Without public notice and following nine minutes of public discussion, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approves in a 1:00 a.m. vote setting up the Fairfax County Industrial Authority for the purpose of issuing $10.4 million in revenue bonds to finance the purchase of Commonwealth Doctors Hospital in the City of Fairfax.[20]
November
- November 11 – With seven months to go in her three-year term, Mona Blake submits her resignation from the Fairfax County School Board for personal reasons.[21]
- November 16 – 20-year-old independent recreational agricultural products salesman and general scumbag Robert A. Poole fatally shoots 34-year-old Donald S. Monsky and seriously injures David Pitt in Great Falls when he decides to rob the two men rather than sell them four pounds of marijuana.[22][23][24]
- November 28 – The early morning explosion of a dynamite bomb set by 30-year-old Stilianos Mavroulis severely damages the home of builder William F. Banks at 753 Chain Bridge Road in McLean.[25][26]
December
- December 2 – Deputy Police Chief Richard A. King is named to succeed Chief William L. Durrer by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.[27]
- December 5 – Fairfax County Executive Robert W. Wilson formally reprimands Fairfax County Police Chief William L. Durrer for improperly exercising police authority related to surveillance of congressman Stanford E. Parris's secretary, Sonya M. Cockrell by FCPD investigators James A. Wojcik and Sandy A. Garrett for two weeks in December 1973 and January 1974.[28]
- December 7 – 18-year-old Willard A. DiMartino and 15-year-old Hartley Maddox are killed when they are thrown from the car they are riding in after it crashes into a utility pole on Popkins Lane in Alexandria. Both are taken to Fairfax Hospital, where they are pronounced dead. The 16-year-old driver of the car is not injured, and is charged with reckless driving.[29]
- December 9 – The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors votes 6-3 to make permanent an emergency ordinance establishing an industrial development authority created to purchase Commonwealth Doctors Hospital in the City of Fairfax.[30]
Crime
There were 15 murders or other homicides in Fairfax County in 1974.
References
- ↑ Bachinski, E. J., and Ron Taylor. "Wounder of Officer Kills Self." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Jan 03 1974. ProQuest. Web. 2 Jan. 2014.
- ↑ Nunes, Donnel and Judy Nicol. "Youth Who Shot Officer, Killed Self 'Quiet, Bright'." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Jan 04 1974. ProQuest. Web. 20 Dec. 2013.
- ↑ "Body of Man found on I-95 Fatally Shot." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Jan 06 1974. ProQuest. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.
- ↑ "Man, 21, Found Slain in Fairfax." Evening Star, 4 Feb. 1974, 3rd Two Star HOME FINAL, p. 31. NewsBank, . Accessed 10 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ "1 Killed, 1 Burned in 2 Fires." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Feb 05 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ "Fairfax Boy, 5, Drowns in Pond." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Feb 14 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Nicol, Judy. "Fairfax Ban on Building to Continue." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Feb 26 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Nicol, Judy. "Command Structure Ineffective." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): C1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1995). Mar 12 1974. Web. 25 June 2012.
- ↑ "Gun Wound Kills Fairfax Policeman." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Apr 28 1974. ProQuest. Web. 11 June 2017.
- ↑ "Boy Killed when Struck by Table." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. May 27 1974. ProQuest. Web. 30 Sep. 2014 .
- ↑ "Fairfax Crash Kills 3 in Family; 1 Hurt." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Jul 05 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Shaffer, Ron. "Auto Crash Leaves Trail of Tragedy." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Mar 01 1975. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Nunes, Donnel. "Truce Quiets 300 After Va. Slaying." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): C1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1994). Aug 23 1974. Web. 13 Aug. 2011.
- ↑ Nunes, Donnel. "Fairfax to Buy 50 Acres in Reston." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Sep 13 1974. ProQuest. Web. 9 Jan. 2014.
- ↑ Frank, Allan."7-Eleven Gun Death Is Ruled 'Justifiable'"Evening Star, 13 Sep. 1974, Two Star HOME FINAL, p. 39. NewsBank. Accessed 21 Dec. 2017.
- ↑ Nunes, Donnell. "Youth Shot Dead in Fight." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Oct 11 1974. ProQuest. Web. 31 May 2014.
- ↑ Grubisich, Thomas. "Youth Says Slaying was 'Irresistible Impulse' Result." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Oct 01 1975. ProQuest. Web. 31 May 2014.
- ↑ "Wife of Mondale Aide is Believed Drowned." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Oct 19 1974. ProQuest. Web. 13 May 2014.
- ↑ "Drowned Woman's Body Recovered from River." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Oct 28 1974. ProQuest. Web. 13 May 2014.
- ↑ Rosenfeld, Megan. "Fairfax Association Signs Doctors Hospital Lease." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Jan 09 1976. ProQuest. Web. 6 Apr. 2017.
- ↑ Taylor, Ronald. "Negro Board Member Quits." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Nov 18 1974. ProQuest. Web. 6 Sep. 2016.
- ↑ "2 in Fairfax Slaying Case Held in N.Y." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Nov 21 1974. ProQuest. Web. 3 Jan. 2014
- ↑ Lyons, Douglas C. "Witness Says Brother Killed Pot Client." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Sep 09 1975. ProQuest. Web. 3 Jan. 2014.
- ↑ Seaberry, Jane. "Man Given 25 Years in Great Falls Killing." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Sep 11 1975. ProQuest. Web. 3 Jan. 2014.
- ↑ Taylor, Ron, and Margot Hornblower. "5 Escape as Bomb Rips $200,000 McLean Home." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Nov 29 1974. ProQuest. Web. 18 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Kiernan, Laura A. "Alexandria Man Pleads Guilty in Extortion Try." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. May 02 1975. ProQuest. Web. 18 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Taylor, Ronald. "King Named Police Chief by Fairfax." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Dec 03 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Rosenfeld, Megan. "Reprimand Given Fairfax Police Chief." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 06 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ "Two Youths Killed in Va. Auto Crash." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 08 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
- ↑ Taylor, Ronald. "Va. Hospital Purchase Approved." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 10 1974. ProQuest. Web. 4 Jan. 2018.
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