On December 2, 2019, the Warren County Sheriff’s Office was called to the area of Digs Landing in the Rivermont area of Warren County for the discovery of a deceased individual. The remains are that of an unknown male with the following clothing description: green baseball style shirt with blue sleeves and a blue pocket and black denim shorts.

The deceased has not been identified at this time. Identification is pending findings from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Further details in the matter are not being released at this time due to the ongoing investigation. The Warren County Sheriff’s Office was assisted at the scene by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office and Warren County Fire and Rescue. The manner of death is considered suspicious and the investigation is ongoing. The Warren County Sheriff’s Office wants the citizens to know that this appears to be an isolated incident and there is no immediate threat to public safety.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Investigator Emily Young of the Warren County Sheriff’s Office at 540-635-4128 or at invyoung@warrencountysheriff.org. Citizens can also utilize the Warren County Sheriff’s Office website to submit a tip by going to www.warrencountysheriff.org. Anyone with information can remain anonymous.

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Anthony Harry Sutton. Photo / RSW Regional Jail

On November 25, 2019, Anthony Harry Sutton, 67, of Front Royal, Virginia, was charged and arrested with two felony charges: 18.2-67.2 Object Sexual Penetration and 18.2-67.1 Forcible Sodomy. These felony charges are in connection with an ongoing investigation regarding Mr. Sutton. Authorities were notified that a juvenile victim had reported to her mother allegations of inappropriate sexual contact by Mr. Sutton. Further details regarding this matter cannot be released at this time due to the pending nature of the investigation.

Mr. Sutton was taken to Rappahannock Shenandoah Warren Regional Jail where he is currently being held without bond. Further charges may be forthcoming as a result of this active investigation.

Anyone with any further information in reference to this case is asked to contact Front Royal Police Detective L.J. Waller at (540) 636-2208 or by email at lwaller@frontroyalva.com.

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An as-yet undetermined date in December was set for the continuation of a hearing on the citizen-launched Removal Petition against the five sitting Warren County Supervisors. The hearing was on the Warren County Circuit Court docket Friday morning, November 22, at 8:45 a.m.

Judge Bruce D. Albertson heard motions and the reasoning for the continuance by video hook up from his home courtroom base in Harrisonburg. When a suggested date of December 6, when Albertson will be in court on EDA-related criminal hearings, did not work for one of the two defense attorneys, James Cornwell, the judge said he would like a specific December date agree upon within two working days.

As he had the previous day during hearings on EDA-related criminal charges, Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Layton notified the court of his intention to remove himself from EDA prosecutions with a newly-elected Commonwealth’s Attorney John Bell slated to take over at the turn of the year, prior to any EDA-related trials getting under way. And with Bell planning to recuse himself from EDA prosecutions to assure there is not even a perception of possible conflicts of interest that might impact future EDA legal proceedings, Layton suggested that despite his desire to continue with the EDA cases, that they, like yesterday’s criminal cases, be turned over to the office of Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst.

Rockingham Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Parker appears poised to take on the bulk of cases Layton has been working, along with the EDA Special Grand Jury investigation. Layton again noted Parker needed time to get up to speed on the background of the various cases he is taking on.

See you again in December – primary motions arguments on the Removal Petition targeting the WC Board of Supervisors will be heard on an as-yet determined December date following Friday’s continuation. Royal Examiner File Photos/Roger Bianchini

Defense co-counsel Cornwell and Acting County Attorney Jason Ham had no objection, by remote phone hook up, to Layton’s call for the continuance of the Removal Petition hearing.

During Friday’s hearing it was reported that notice of certification of the required amount of signatures had been received from Warren County Voter Registrar Carol Tobin. That certification, which came despite the loss of 107 signatures that could not be verified as registered county voters, allows the Petition for Removal from office of the supervisors to proceed.

The filing required a minimum of 10% of the number of registered county voters who voted in the last election. That number is cited as 6,958, requiring a total of 696 countywide. Even with the 107 lost signatures, the petition contained 835 verified signatures.

The petition was filed October 18 as part of the grass roots public reaction to the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority financial scandal that has led to a number of dueling civil litigations surrounding the EDA’s attempt to recover $21.3 million dollars in allegedly misdirected or embezzled EDA assets. The EDA civil litigation alone has already cost the County and its taxpayers $1.31 million dollars in legal and investigative financial audit costs.

And with a $750,000 cap on attorney’s fees payable to the Sands Anderson law firm of Richmond removed by the supervisors on Tuesday, that number is anticipated to keep climbing over the coming year or more as the civil cases proceed and what is anticipated to eventually be in the neighborhood of a million pages of related documentation is submitted for those civil, and related criminal, cases.

The Removal Petition contends the County’s elected Supervisors were directly negligent and in dereliction of their official duties in allowing the alleged EDA financial embezzlements to develop under their indirect stewardship since at least 2014-15.

After the Front Royal Town Council voluntarily abdicated certain oversight functions several years ago when the County took over the Town’s operational funding of the EDA, the County Board alone now appoints EDA Board of Director members. It is those appointed members of the quasi-governmental EDA that have direct oversight authority of EDA staff, a defense motions filing in the Removal Petition case states.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Layton, left, with FBI and VSP during April 16 search of EDA offices. Leaving the office in January, Layton is fazing himself out of EDA cases and Commonwealth’s Attorney-Elect John Bell is recusing from them. So the Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office will take over those prosecutions.

The Removal Petition cites the board members’ three misdemeanor criminal indictments on misfeasance and nonfeasance charges filed September 20 as one primary legal basis of the recall. Those charges targeted the supervisors, along with current and former EDA board members, for an absence of due diligent oversight of the actions of former Warren County Economic Development Executive Director Jennifer McDonald in the final four months of 2018.

However, the fact those indictments were dismissed by Judge Albertson as non-criminal by Virginia Statutes, even dating to English Common Law under which they were filed, may complicate the petitioners’ argument.

Just two days before Friday’s hearing defense co-counsel Cornwell and Ham filed a Demurer with the court seeking dismissal of the petition. Grounds cited for dismissal include a lack of jurisdiction for the filing; a lack of legal authority for the supervisors to act directly to limit the activities of EDA staff; and “Legislative Immunity” precluding the Judicial Branch of State Government from a “quasi-criminal” investigation of a Legislative body such as the county supervisors regarding how they conduct their business.

It would appear that while the timing of the defense Demurrer filing might have precluded proceeding with arguments Friday, a December hearing date could see arguments on these crucial legal points of contention.

On October 28, Judge Albertson denied a petitioner’s motion to immediately remove the five sitting supervisors prior to any arguments on the legal dynamics of the Removal Petition.

Warren County’s incumbent supervisors continue to await a decision on a citizen-filed Removal Petition – for three of them it will soon be a moot point.

Targeted by the Removal Petition are Daniel J. Murray of the North River District, Thomas H. Sayre of the Shenandoah District, Tony F. Carter of the Happy Creek District, Archie A. Fox of the Fork District, and Linda Glavis of the South River District. As of the turn of the year in the wake of Murray and Glavis’s retirements and Sayre’s defeat at the polls in November, only Carter and Fox will be impacted by the Removal action.

See Related Stories:

County Supervisors removal petition filed with 941 signatures

County officials, EDA board members have good day in court – will it last?

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On Thursday, November 21, four Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority criminal defendants saw preliminary hearings, and in one case trial dates over the objection of Donald Poe’s attorneys, continued to future dates. Those defendants were former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald, her husband Samuel North, former EDA small business client B&G Goods principal William Lambert, and former EDA solar panel contractor Earth Right Energy principal Donald Poe.

A date of January 10, at 1 p.m. was set for motions hearings and possible trial date settings on joint defense-commonwealth motions in McDonald’s, North’s and Lambert’s cases. Only Poe co-counsel William Ashwell objected to the delays, noting his client was in a somewhat different position that the other defendants.

That position is trial dates on all four charges against Poe already set for December 6 (perjury to the grand jury) and three financial charges of obtaining or conspiring to obtain money by false pretenses set for a three-day trial January 22 to 24.

Ashwell told the court his client was “pretty anxious to clear his name” adding, “I think we need to get things going now.”

Noting the defendant’s objection, Judge Bruce D. Albertson included the Poe cases in the continuations granted Thursday to the 1 p.m. docket on January 10.

The Warren County Courthouse will see both new and familiar faces in coming hearings and trials related to the EDA financial scandal. Royal Examiner File Photos/Roger Bianchini

As explained by Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Layton, primary among the reasons for those continuations is the naming of a new prosecutor’s office to handle the EDA-related criminal prosecutions. Layton has been leading the Special Grand Jury empaneled to investigate potential criminality tied to the $21.3 million dollar EDA civil litigation since former Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney Brian Madden left the office to assume a judicial appointment in Frederick County.

However, with a newly-elected Commonwealth’s Attorney, John Bell who was hand to observe Tuesday’s proceedings, poised to take office at the turn of the year Layton notified the court he was withdrawing as special prosecutor for the EDA grand jury investigation into EDA affairs.

And Bell told the court due to peripheral past legal representations or political affiliations, he would recuse himself from EDA prosecutions to “avoid any appearance of impropriety so the people of Warren County are assured there are no thumbs on the scales (of justice).”

Chief 26^th Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Albertson, himself a replacement after all Warren County Circuit Court judges recused or left for higher court appointments prior to pending recusals, accepted Layton’s recommendation of the Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to take over the EDA criminal prosecutions.

Rockingham Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael J. Parker was present to represent the office of Rockingham Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst. Courtroom discussion indicated Parker would take the point for Rockingham’s work on the EDA cases.

Related to various motions hearings scheduled for Thursday afternoon’s 4 p.m. docket, Layton noted the “voluminous material” related to the EDA cases and asked the court for “an extra period of time to get Mr. Parker up to speed.”

That voluminous material was referred to as a “terabyte” of digitized information ordered by the Virginia Supreme Court to handle what has been referred to in previous hearings as 700,000 to one million pages of related documentation.

Despite his counsel’s objection and Poe not joining the other defendants in waiving their rights to speedy trials, Earth Right Energy principal Poe will join the other three defendants in court for hearings on January 10 on the 1 p.m. docket.

Donald F. Poe outside the courthouse following an earlier hearing.

Judge Albertson continued Poe’s scheduled jury trial on his perjury charge from December 6, to the previously scheduled first day of an anticipated three-day trial on the EDA financial fraud charges, January 22, with the following dates available were that trial to go beyond one day.

Albertson also set a hearing for the aborted December 6 perjury trial date to set a new date for Poe’s now in limbo financial charges trial.

Albertson also granted North attorney Frank Reynold’s request for a Bill of Particulars on the three charges his client faces related to actions cited as occurring “on or about August 1, 2015” to be responded to by January 8, two days prior to the newly scheduled motions hearing date.

Reynolds, like Lambert attorney Phil Griffin, told the court he and his client did not want to have to navigate the perhaps digital planetary-sized “terabyte” of EDA financial fraud-related documentation for information on a limited, yet thus-far unspecified accusation against his client.

McDonald is facing 32 felony financial fraud indictments; her husband North three; Lambert three, and Poe four, including the perjury charge, related to information contained in the $500,000 County-EDA contracted Cherry Bekaert financial fraud investigation of EDA financial affairs during McDonald’s executive directorship of the EDA.

Jennifer McDonald on the job, here circa 2016 with then EDA Board Chair Patty Wines, during her decade long tenure as chief executive of the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority.

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Robert Daniel Heishman at booking – Photo/RSW Jail website

An employee of ABM Service Company, a contractor for custodial services for Warren County Public Schools, was arrested in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 9, and charged with two counts of child pornography. Specifically, on the Rappahannock-Shenandoah-Warren County Regional Jail website the charges were cited as “Obscenity – Child Porn – Take part, film child porn, age <15, offender 7+ years”.

Robert Daniel Heishman, 27, was booked into RSW Regional Jail at 5:26 AM Saturday and was being held without bond pending a court hearing according to the RSW Jail website.
Attempts to verify details of Heishman’s employment with the school system administration prior to publication were unsuccessful.

Melody Shepard, Assistant Superintendent of Warren County Schools said that WCPS is co-operating with the investigation.

This story will be updated as additional information becomes available.

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The indictment filed October 15 (2019) against a 19-year-old Odessa, Texas man accused of cyberstalking and making social media threats against the family of a 16-year-old Linden girl who was found dead not far from her Apple Mountain home 12 days after going missing the evening of April 26, 2018, show the dark underbelly of social media use to dark and pathological ends.

While Adrian Raul O’Dell is charged on four counts related to online threats and harassment of Sarah Rose Genari’s mother, father, sister and brother occurring between June 2018 and June 2019, the indictment indicates O’Dell’s claim of driving the 16-year-old Warren County girl two thirds of the way across the country to suicide through their social media contacts prior to her disappearance and the May 8, 2018, discovery of her body in a heavily wooded area just off the road not far from her home.

SRG, as Sarah Rose Genari is referred to in the indictment, died of what was ruled by the state coroner’s office as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“From on or around September 2017, to on or around March 2018, SRG had an online relationship with defendant ADRIAN RAUL O’DELL, with whom she communicated about, among other topics, depression and suicide,” the indictment states. It continues to describe several subsequent online and social media interactions in which O’Dell references himself in the third person or uses Facebook alter egos to direct credit for SRG’s death to “Adrian O’Dell”.

A WCSO note on her disappearance was accompanied by this photo of Sara Rose Genari posted on social media.

“In or around June 2018, defendant ADRIAN RAUL O’DELL sent an email to the WCSO using a Gmail account, odellgamez@gmail.com. In the email, defendant told a WCSO investigator that he knew who drove SRG to suicide and that the person was ‘Adrian,’ who lived in Odessa, Texas … In or around June 2018, defendant ADRIAN RAUL O’DELL, using Amino, an online social media application, made posts and messaged others also using Amino in which he claimed responsibility and took credit for SRG’s death,” the indictment continues.

The indictment also describes a November 29, 2018, “anonymous tip” to the FBI stating that a suspect named Adrian O’Dell of Odessa, Texas “has willingly admitted to killing (SRG).”

In August 2018, just three months after Sara Genari’s death, O’Dell is described establishing contact with the Genari family through Facebook Messenger, asking if they were related to the deceased girl.

By December 2018, O’Dell is said to have made contact with the family and friends of SRG through a Facebook account named “Amanda Williams” in which screenshots of Snapchat messages in which Snapchat user “EN stated how he killed SRG.”

The family did not respond and/or blocked the “Amanda Williams” account, the indictment states.

The cutback section of overgrowth at right indicates where Sarah Genari’s body was found 12 days after her disappearance. Royal Examiner File Photos/Roger Bianchini

O’Dell then is alleged to have used other Facebook identities to contact Genari’s family and friends, two under the name “Tim Johnson” in which O’Dell began sending profanity-laced, “gangsta”-tinged lingo berating and threatening family members and bragging about causing the girl’s death.

“…I’m glad I called that hit out on her, I’m glad I killed her … was fun to do. Posting about me on here?? You dumb af hoe I’ll put a 5k bag on your head and have you dead just like I did your … daughter I know your exact address hoe Go ahead and press charges and try and arrest me. You better hope they do or its ur a** I’ll come to Virginia and blow up yo sh*t … I made his daughter take y’all gun for some fun. Guess I am Satan …Give me two months and y’all gonna be in a coffin … Don’t mess with gang sh*t bruh You’ll end up like your daughter … Post about me again and I’ll show you wtf happens,” was part of a December 20, 2018 message to Genari’s mother.

On December 28, 2018, he wrote Genari’s sister, “… that’s why we … killed her, Adrian and all of us. You think you guys are gonna catch us, y’all won’t bruh …a whole a** police investigation. Y’all Stoopid! I guess we will just keep getting away with it …”

I guess “he” and “they” guessed wrong.

“The subscriber information for the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses associated with the above accounts and messages – i.e. <odellgamez@gmail.com; Amino; FBI Tip; and Facebook accounts for ‘Adrian O’Dell’, ‘Amanda Williams’, and ‘Tim Johnson’ – correspond to defendant ADRIAN RAUL O’DELL’s residence in Odessa, Texas,” the final evidentiary paragraph of the indictment reads leading into the five counts O’Dell was arrested on.

“Cyberstalking and communicating threats through social media are serious federal crimes and prosecuting them is a priority of this office,” U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen stated in the Western District of Virginia, Harrisonburg Division press release on the O’Dell indictments, adding, “I am grateful for the hard work of the FBI and the Warren County Sheriff’s office in identifying this defendant and bringing him to justice.

“This case is important to us because a young girl’s family, while still mourning her death, was re-victimized with the messages sent by the accused. We are grateful for the assistance of the FBI El Paso Division’s Midland Resident Agency and the United States Attorney’s Office during the course of this investigation.”

The Western District press release on the O’Dell arrest notes that Assistant United States Attorney Kate Rumsey will prosecute the case for the United States.

That location was soon marked by a cross commemorating a life lost too young.

Texas man charged with cyberstalking, making interstate threats

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