Deputy Shawn Hess, a six-year veteran of the force, was westbound on State Route 460 in the Cliffield area about 6 a.m. when his vehicle went through a guardrail and plunged down an embankment.

Sheriff’s deputies and the Virginia State Police spent most of the morning at the scene. State police have taken charge of the investigation, the sheriff’s office said in a written statement on the crash.

The office’s chief deputy, Maj. Chris Boyd, said in that statement that Hess, who was single, is survived by his mother. He also said that Sheriff H.S. Caudill met with the department during the afternoon, and a state police chaplain spoke with deputies and staff.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Boyd said Hess was responding to a request to assist in an investigation early Friday that began with a 4 a.m. emergency call to aid a teenager who had just given birth.

Police soon learned that the teen and a 38-year-old man in the home with her, were both wanted out of North Carolina.

The teenager was a missing juvenile from Lenoir, N.C.

The man in the home, Kenny King, of Lenoir, N.C., was wanted on rape charges.

King was arrested and taken to the Southwest Regional Jail in Tazewell, where he is being held without bond. He was charged with two counts of abuse and neglect of a child, and with being a fugitive from justice.

Town of Richland police and fire and rescue units initially were sent to the Crestview Mobile Home Park in Richlands to help a 15-year-old girl who was suffering a seizure. She had given birth to a baby boy just hours earlier.

Emergency responders arrived to find the mother in critical condition.

Police on the scene, after learning the identities of the two, began an investigation and seized several pieces of evidence from the home, including a 2000 Chrysler Concord. And, determining that there might be another location connected to the incident, the officers sought assistance from the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office and the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

Hess was responding to that call – traveling to the other site in question – when his vehicle crashed.

The teen mother and her baby boy were transported to the Clinch Valley Medical Center in Richland. The mother was treated there, then sent to the Johnson City Medical Center here she was listed in critical condition late Friday, police said.

The baby boy remains hospitalized at the Clinch Valley Medical Center, and is currently in the custody of the Tazewell County Department of Social Services, police said.

He is survived by his mother.

A Richmond sheriff’s deputy has died a week after she was involved in a single vehicle crash at VCU Medical Center.

On Friday, June 11, Caroline Green, 51, a two-year sheriff’s department veteran, crashed an unmarked vehicle into a wall next to a VCU Medical Center entrance around 10:45 p.m.

The car ran into a concrete and glass wall at the Gateway building just south of Clay Street. The front end of the sedan was visibly crumpled and the air bag deployed.

Green was hospitalized after the attack. On Saturday, June 19, after undergoing several medical operations, Green died, according to the Richmond Sheriff’s Department.

“It’s just tearing us apart,” said Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Reprinted from Richmond Times-Dispatch

Deputy Dean Ridings was pronounced dead about 2 p.m., at Mary Washington Hospital from injuries suffered in a boating accident about 80 minutes earlier.

Another Spotsylvania deputy on patrol with Ridings, William Schroeder Jr., was treated and released yesterday from Mary Washington with what are being called minor injuries.

Police released few details about the accident but said it did not involve a crash with another boat.

Schroeder was operating the 19-foot Invader outboard boat at the time of the accident, said state police Sgt. Les Tyler.

Schroeder was thrown from the boat into the water while Ridings remained onboard. Other boaters on Lake Anna helped get Schroeder back to the patrol boat, which he then drove to shore at the state park.

Two ambulances took the pair to Mary Washington, with deputies escorting the ambulance transporting Ridings.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ Law Enforcement Division is investigating. More details are expected to be released today.

Members of the state police, Fredericksburg Police Department and Spotsylvania and Stafford sheriff’s offices gathered at the city’s police department yesterday to be close to the hospital, handle media inquiries and grieve for Ridings.

“You couldn’t keep up with that man,” said Spotsylvania sheriff’s Capt. Bill Gill. “He was a good man.”

Gill said Ridings was experienced on the marine patrol. He said Lake Anna was crowded yesterday.

Ridings, who lived in Spotsylvania and was a retired Marine, had been with the Sheriff’s Office since 2004. Two sons, Nicholas and Gordon, are also Spotsylvania sheriff’s deputies. Ridings was married and had three young grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete yesterday.

Ridings became the first Spotsylvania sheriff’s deputy killed in the line of duty since Sept. 22, 1988, when detective Richard Lee Samuels died at the age of 46 after suffering a heart attack while chasing a prisoner who had broken free from the county courthouse.

Reprinted from The Free Lance-Star
Bill Freehling: 540/374-5405
Email: bfreehling@freelancestar.com

When Sheriff John P. (Jack) Robbins, Jr. became Sheriff of Northampton County in 2002, he was following a long family tradition.  A very long family tradition.  One that began 350 years ago when his 11^th great grandfather, Edmund Scarburgh became the Sheriff of Accomack County in 1661.

Of course, Robbins didn’t know this when he became a Sheriff’s deputy in 1977 or even when he became sheriff.  He was just pursuing a career in which he had held a long time interest.

A few years ago he was looking at a list of Northampton County sheriffs and noticed a few familiar names on it – Addison, which was his mother’s maiden name, and Robins, a variation on the spelling of his last name.

Robbins consulted the family expert, his second cousin David Scott.  Scott, a Nassawadox physician, has been researching Eastern Shore genealogy since his was a teen-ager in the 1970s.

“I said, oh yeah, you’re a descendant of a lot of these people,” Scott confirmed.  “If you include cousins, you are probably related to three quarters of these people.”

But as a genealogist, Scott knows the difference between being a direct descendant and merely cousins.  He looked at the sheriff’s list, which dates back to 1634, and he looked at his genealogies, and he connected Robbins in the direct line of eight former Northampton County sheriffs.

I might be the only sheriff in the state with that many sheriffs in my family tree, says Robbins.  Scott agrees that Robbins’ large number of direct sheriff ancestors is likely unique.  Several factors contribute to the probability.  The Eastern Shore was one of the earliest places settled in Virginia, and it had the first sworn sheriff in the new world in 1634.  Robbins’ ancestors have been here since the early 1600s, and the Shore is geographically isolated resulting in many families which are intertwined.

The sheriffs come from both Robbins’ father’s side of the family  – he was John Page Robbins, from Johnsontown, and his mother’ side – she was Margaret Tutwiler Addison of Eastville.

The first sheriff from whom Robbins is directly descended was Colonel Edmund Scarburgh, one of the most prominent figures in early Eastern Shore history.  Scarburgh  was intelligent, wealthy and powerful, owning 46,000 acres of land and serving in almost every significant political position available in that period.  In addition to being the sheriff from 1661-1668, he was Virginia’s surveyor general, clerk of court, member of court and a member of the House of Burgesses.

Robbins is also a direct descendant of Argoll Yardley, II, the grandson of the much-respected colonial governor Sir George Yardley.   Yardley was sheriff in 1681.  He’s Robbins’ 9^th great-grandfather on his father’s side.

Robbins’ other ancestors holding the post include Capt. Arthur Robins, his 7^th great grandfather, who was sheriff in 1691 and Arthur Robins III, sheriff in 1773.

Col. John Stringer, sheriff in 1670,  Hillary Stringer, sheriff in 1686, Ralph Pigott sheriff in 1721, and John Addison, sheriff in 1820 round out the family tree.

Some of Robbins’ modern-day duties are remarkably similar to those several centuries ago.  Then and now, the sheriff was responsible for arresting those charged with offenses, keeping the jail, and maintaining the security of the court.

Unlike today, says Robbins, in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, basically I think they were tax collectors.   One of the sheriffs’ most important duties was collecting tithables  — the equivalent of a tax.  The tithe was assessed in pounds of tobacco.  The sheriffs’ salaries were paid with tobacco as well.  The Northampton County order book for 1773 has the following accounting:

“To Arthur Robins Gent Sheriff his salary              1385 (pounds tobacco)

“To Arthur Robins Gent for a lock for the prison       70 (pounds tobacco)

“Ordered the Sheriff do collect 8 (pounds) tobacco from every tithable or in money at

12/6 (12 shillings, 6 pence).”

Sheriffs in the 17^th and 18^th centuries also oversaw punishments ranging from sitting in stocks, wearing a sign describing one’s offenses in church or being dragged across a body of water.

While such duties are no longer part of the office, Robbins takes a great deal of pride both in his family connections to past sheriffs and in Northampton County’s long and interesting sheriff’s history.

He occasionally talks to local school groups about how the office began when reeves served the English king as tithe collectors and keepers of the peace.  Each reeve served in a geographical area known as a shire, and the shire’s reeve morphed into name sheriff, Robbins explains.

Last year the General Assembly recognized the 375^th anniversary of the office of sheriff and the Eastern Shore’s role in it. In addition to having the first sworn sheriff in America, the Eastern Shore boasts the first elected sheriff as well.  In 1651 the House of Burgesses required each county to chose a sheriff.  Forging new ground, Northampton’s commissioners asked the residents to elect one instead.  The result was the first elected sheriff in the new world – William Waters of Northampton County.

As part of the 375^th anniversary, Henrico County Sheriff Mike Wade designed commemorative badges and made them available to sheriffs and deputies who wished to buy them.  It should come as no surprise that the sheriff who has eight sheriffs in his family tree wears that badge with pride.

by Claudia Bagwell
David R. Scott contributed genealogical research for this article.

Deputy Christopher Ray, 22, the passenger in the car, was killed on General Thomas Highway near Handsom Road outside Franklin, the sheriff’s office said. The car crashed into a tree that had fallen across the roadway, the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office said the driver was Deputy Jason Brinkley, who was treated and released from a hospital.

Ray joined the sheriff’s office on June 1 after graduating from Radford University with a degree in criminal justice.

“The thoughts and prayers of the entire Southampton County Sheriff’s Office go out to Deputy Ray’s family and Deputy Brinkley and his family in this most difficult time,” a statment from the sheriff’s office said.

Virginia State Police are investigating the crash. A State Police spokeswoman did not return a voicemail Saturday seeking information.

By Patrick Wilson
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 29, 2009

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com