Saturday, May 22, 2010

Portsmouth, VA: Suspect in woman's slaying apparently kills self

A Virginia Beach man wanted in the death of his former girlfriend apparently shot himself just hours after she was killed when Accomack County deputies stopped him Friday morning on U.S. 13.

Portsmouth police were seeking Clarence J. Clayton, 29, after Mary Jane C. Abad, 22, was found shot to death in a parking lot in the 300 block of Port Centre P kw y.

Abad's mother, Rosemary Shepard, said her daughter was a pharmacy technician who worked for Neighbor Care Pharmacy at that location. She was pregnant and the mother of two young children, Shepard said.

Officers received calls about gunshots and a gunshot victim in that parking lot at 10:25 p.m. Thursday, according to Detective John Doyle, a police spokesman. They found Abad dead of multiple gunshot wounds.

Police secured warrants charging Clayton with first-degree murder, use of a firearm and motor vehicle theft. Police said he was being sought and that he was believed to be driving a red 2006 Mercedes-Benz.

Sheriff's deputies spotted Clayton in a vehicle on U.S. 13 at about 9:30 a.m. Friday. They stopped him, but by the time they got to him, he was dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Portsmouth police said.

Shepard said she was told people heard an argument in the pharmacy's parking lot before the shooting Thursday night. Shepard said her daughter had dated Clayton off and on for about two years. She thinks they broke up about three weeks ago. Clayton wanted to resume the relationship and her daughter did not, she said.

Shepard said Clayton was a truck driver and someone she knew well. She said she did not see him as someone who would do this.

Shepard said her daughter was three months pregnant and had two small daughters, ages 3 and 1. Abad and her daughters lived with Shep-ard in the Courthouse Estates neighborhood of Virginia Beach, she said.

Janie Bryant, (757) 446-2453, janie.bryant@pilotonline.com

No comments: