AUDIO: Tragic moment

DOLPHIN -- There used to be a Pepsi machine, gas pumps and an icebox out front and the words "Lawrence's Grocery" painted in black letters high on the white block wall.

Inside was fresh produce, meat, canned goods, drinks, hardware and over-the-counter medications. Neighbors, farmers and laborers stopped by the only store at this rural Brunswick County crossroads to shop and catch up on local news.

In a minute or two on the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 21, 1998, one owner was killed, the other gravely wounded, the 18-year-old business shut down and a small farming community forever diminished.

A decade later, Patricia L. Vaughan rests in a cemetery; her husband, Lawrence T. Vaughan, 68, is semi-retired; and Kevin Green, 31, of Brodnax, sits on death row waiting to die on May 27.

If carried out, his execution would be one of the first in the country since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed lethal injections to resume last month and the first in Virginia since Nov. 9, 2006.

Vaughan and his daughters plan to attend.

"I still have both bullets in me," Vaughan said. "I lost my wife. I lost my business. I lost my neighbors."

Unable to manage things on his own, he sold the store. "Nobody [is] running it now. . . . I never reopened," he said. Back when he was in business, Fridays were paydays at a nearby lumber company and things were busy.

Vaughan remembers well what happened at 1:50 p.m. that final Friday.

He and his wife had their backs to the door when Green, a former sawmill employee, and his nephew, David Green, entered. Vaughan looked over his shoulder, saw them and resumed work. Then he heard his wife scream, "Oh, God," followed by four bangs.

Shot in the neck and elbow, Vaughan's collapse was so sudden his ankle twisted beneath him. He saw Kevin Green fire the fourth shot toward his wife.

Vaughan's pistol and a bank bag with $9,000 for cashing the sawmill paychecks, were under a counter. The nephew grabbed them and fled after attempting to shoot his way into the cash register with Vaughan's gun.

Before following, Kevin Green walked toward Patsy and pulled the trigger again. The gun misfired. He ejected the cartridge, and it fell to the floor between Vaughan's feet. He fired two more shots and left the store with an empty gun.

Vaughan was conscious. Patsy, shot in the temple, chest and back was not. "I went over, pulled the telephone to the floor and called 911," he said. The last time he saw his wife of 38 years, she was covered by a sheet.

"I was in the hospital the day she was buried," he said.

The Vaughans' oldest daughter, Marcia Brown, said, "It just completely destroyed that community. I even have people come to me today and tell me how much they love Mama and Daddy and how much they miss that store."

"The way I found out about it was a nightmare," she said. She was at work at the Community Memorial Healthcenter in South Hill. A supervisor told her that her father had been shot, but nothing about her mother.

She began to cry. "The first thing I wanted to do was just go home. And my thought was to call my mother to see what had happened."

Before she could leave, her husband, Kenneth Brown, called and told her to wait for him. She met him at their home. He said, "I have something to tell you. . . . Your mom's been murdered."

Vaughan was flown to the VCU Medical Center. Brown first saw him at 1 a.m. that Saturday. There was a device in his throat to assist his breathing. "He had tears streaming down his face. And he mouthed the words: "Mama's gone."

Her parents grew up a few miles from each other and were baptized at the Dolphin Baptist Church, a mile up Liberty Road from the store. They dated at Brunswick High School and married; their two daughters came along in 1960 and 1962.

"They struggled a lot when we were coming up," said Brown. "Daddy had two jobs, and my mom worked in the sewing factory. . . . We lived in a five-room trailer for a long time."

Her parents started the business in 1981. "When the opportunity came up for them to have the store, that was their chance to give back to the community," she said.

They put in 18-hour days, recalls Vaughan. "We [worked] together . . . we [ate] together, slept together, went to church together," he said. "We'd go home at night -- I'd cut grass; she'd fix supper."

When the nearby Fire Department had a fish fry, Vaughan donated the food. Brown said her mother crocheted clothes for babies born in the area.

"Daddy and Mama would deliver groceries to the elderly," she said, and they extended credit to people on Social Security. They loaned money to a woman with throat cancer to help with medical expenses.

That woman's son, Brian Roberts, then 22, was the first law officer to reach the store. He had been sworn in as a deputy sheriff just five days before walking into the scene of a capital murder.

Today Roberts, who grew up on a family farm half a mile from the store, is the Brunswick County sheriff. At 32, he is the youngest sheriff in the state.

"It was the community grocery store," he said. "Every day of my life as a child I was in that store, whether it was just to pick up a cake, or lunch or whatever." Its closing was a great loss to Dolphin, he said.

The two robbers fled to Washington. They returned days later, were quickly arrested and confessed.

Kevin Green was tried and sentenced to death, but the verdict was thrown out on appeal. He was retried and sentenced to death a second time. David Green, a juvenile, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 23 years.

Before sentencing Kevin Green on Jan. 24, 2002, Judge James A. Luke asked him if he had anything to say. "No," responded Green. "Do I have any remorse? No, I don't. I'm ready to die."

His lawyers are expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and have filed a clemency petition with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. Although courts have disagreed, they say Green, who had no prior criminal record, is retarded and, therefore, cannot be executed.

Vaughan made it through the trials and the ordeal of testifying. For six years he lived in his Dolphin home alone, rarely venturing out. He has since moved to South Hill, to be near Brown, and he has remarried.

Brown is moving on with her life, though, she said, "I keep waiting for that phone to ring, or waiting for her to come to the door."

"It all just happened so fast and so quick. I know it's been 10 years but it's even hard to go to the grave site. I just cry like a little kid. This shouldn't have never happened to her.

"Why didn't they just take the money and run?"
Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or fgreen@timesdispatch.com.