2008.12.17
Search teams keep focus on Wythe, Pulaski counties
Authorities have expanded the search area for a Wythe County shooting suspect a little farther north into Pulaski County.
Wythe County Chief Deputy Keith Dunagan said still believe Douglas Albert Jaccard, who has been at large since just after 7 a.m. Tuesday, is in the area. Search teams are also looking through caves along the New River in that area, Dunagan said.
Residents of the half-dozen homes on Dyer Road who were evacuated on Tuesday are allowed back into their homes today, although they say they were told to do so at their own risk.
Meanwhile, a U.S. marshal was injured today during the search. The marshal, who is not being identified cut his leg in a fall while jumping down the same steep cliff that Jaccard jumped. The marshal did require stictches, authorities said.
Jaccard, a 58-year-old Vietnam veteran with a criminal history and a pending court case, is familiar with the woods around his Wythe County home and is considered armed and dangerous, Dunagan has said.
According to authorities and witnesses, Jaccard is accused of fatally shooting Joseph Foster Bane, 45, at Bane's Dyer Road home at just past 7 a.m. Tuesday. His neighbor Jerry Covey heard the gunshot, went outside to help and was shot in the arm.
After the shootings, Jaccard is accused of breaking into Bane’s house and setting it on fire. Sharon Bane and the Banes’ teenage son were inside.
Sharon Bane was afraid to leave the house at first, authorites have said, believing Jaccard was still there. She finally jumped out a second-story window. The teenager made it out of the house safely.
Jaccard is also suspected of shooting Pulaski County Deputy J.A. Radcliffe. Radcliffe was struck in the back along the line of his bulletproof vest and suffered only a minor injury.
Dunagan said Jaccard also fired at but missed two Wythe County deputies. Jaccard then leaped over a steep bank between his house and his neighbor’s house, Dunagan said. The deputies who saw him said he went head over heels, he said.
Radcliffe, a 14-year veteran of the force, remains hospitalized this morning in stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. Sharon Bane was treated and released, the spokeswoman said.
No information is being released about Covey, a spokesman for Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital said this morning. Covey, who was shot in the arm, underwent surgery at the hospital Tuesday afternoon, a family member said.
Dunagan has said he won't speculate on a motive behind the shootings. But court documents show that Jaccard was scheduled to appear in Wythe County Circuit Court today for a pretrial motions hearing on charges of indecent liberties, abduction and possession of explosive materials.
The charges stem from allegations that on March 18, Jaccard propositioned a 14-year-old boy with whom he was de-barking wood in the Dyer Road neighborhood, according to the circuit court case file.
According to a criminal complaint, Jaccard asked the boy if he liked oral sex and also asked if the boy would be interested in sex if Jaccard “dressed up like a woman.”
The boy, a neighbor of Jaccard’s, told police that he was not directly threatened but that he was scared because Jaccard was using a drawknife to cut the wood.
Wythe County Commonwealth’s Attorney Gerald Mabe said Tuesday that Jaccard had rejected any plea agreements, but that his defense attorney hoped to separate the indecent liberties and abduction charges from the explosives charges.
When police searched Jaccard’s house after the allegations, they found three canisters of gunpowder, according to the complaint.
Jaccard lived alone at the home, Dunagan said.
He had previously been convicted of malicious wounding, assault and three counts of brandishing a firearm and released from prison in 2005.
Jaccard is 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs about 170 pounds and has brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about his whereabouts should call 911.






I think he should have been held in the first place on the abduction and child charges. By letting him out before his courtdate he was given the chance to run and has killed and injured innocent people in the process. Authorities should take child charges more serious! Now he is on the loose and is able to hurt or even kill more people.
Comment by Magen — December 17, 2008 @ 2:13 pm
Dont blame the authorities. They dont decide whether or not someone stays in jail.
Comment by whatever — December 17, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
Magen is right! Allowing people out on bond when knowing a child would once again be put at stake is insane on all parts of the authorities! Our laws are to protect the innocent first and foremost instead we protect the ones who are guilty and at that we all are at fault for putting people in authority that sell us great lines into doing better for our government and laws! Whether this man would have been found guilty on the charges he was facing or not he now has killed one man and wounded two...Who is next? And, when one puts 'Whatever' as a nic it states to me that one must spend the majority of their time thinking, "Whatever!" Life is to short to always think, 'oh well, who cares and whatever'!!!!!
Comment by Bev Bishop — December 18, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
The police DID take these crimes seriously. It was the JUDGE who decided to let this killer out on bond. The blood is on his hands.
Comment by Jason — December 20, 2008 @ 9:26 am