After the Virginia Supreme Justice Christian Compton praised the police for such an awe-inspiring job, this item broke in the Roanoke Times, the daily paper. The Grand Jury found that Foutz and Brown had been running their own loan business with Town funds they collected for doing fingerprint cards. Taking bicycles that were meant for needy children and giving them to friends and the children of the police officers in their command. Taking guns from the evidence room for their own use and taking property from people without charging them with a crime.
Brown was supposed to get a court order for confiscated drugs and destroy them before witnesses. He didn't bother with that, claimed he burned some, flushed some down the toilet and threw some to the wind. I doubt he would destroy something negotiable as drugs if he is stealing money and bicycles and guns. He was getting rid of them someway and that someway could have been through Blaine Hodges.
Brown's wife Carmine, "accidentally" killed herself by running the car in a closed garage at their home. When Brown "found" her he called the Vinton Police Department and not the Botetourt Sheriff Office which had jurisdiction. The Medical Examiner Dr David Oxley called it an accident. The same ME that said Blaine Hodges had been dead twenty-four to thirty-six hours longer than the rest of the Hodges.
I sent an e-mail to the Virginia State Police claiming it sounded like murder. The State Police sent my complaint right back to the Salem State Police District Office and on to the Commonwealth Attorney of that county. I called the police and they said they had no jurisdiction in the matter.
Who doesn't know not to run a vehicle in a closed garage? This happened right before the Town and Foutz and Brown were the defendants in a lawsuit claiming sexual harassment and discrimination from one of the females in the department.
The entire thing stinks of cover-up and insurance doesn't pay for murder or suicide, but it may pay double for accidental death. I don't know if insurance was involved but the Virginia State Police should look into it. I believed anyone could report a crime. Not when it involves cops in Virginia.There are a dozen laws broken that Foutz and Brown could have been, but were never, charged. For a time the Grand Jury findings were kept under seal. Then a Judge allowed the news media to look at the findings for three hours with the requirement nothing could be copied or photographed. Finally, the entire record was made public with a few names blacked out. If you know a lot about powerful people you can break all kinds of laws and never be punished. Maybe get away with murder.
This is Michael Stovall, a Vinton cop at the time of the Hodges murders. He now owns a driving school, Alert Driver Training of Vinton.
He was the fair haired boy (what little hair he has) of the Vinton PD by finding the old lady and getting her to lie about the truck she saw.
He made the phony video of the trucks under the sodium lights after he testified those lights were NOT installed at that time and in that place. This is about as dishonest as anyone can be. This is creating evidence that is a lie.
When I talked with him over the phone he wouldn't even admit to testifying about the lights but it is in the court transcript that he did. I wouldn't believe him under oath and neither should anyone else. You can depend on people like this to lie anytime it will serve their purpose.
