2008.12.18
Search moves farther into Pulaski County
Law enforcement officers searching for a man wanted in the shootings of three people have shifted their focus to a Boy Scout camp in Pulaski County.
After spending two full days searching for Douglas Albert Jaccard in the woods and caves near the Wythe-Pulaski County line, investigators moved today into the Blue Ridge Scout Reservation, a 16,000-acre camp that bustles with activity in the summer but is deserted in winter.
“It might be a good place to hole up,” Chief Deputy Keith Dunagan of the Wythe County Sheriff’s Office said. Jaccard, 58, is familiar with the camp, he said.
A tracker with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries got on a trail that led searchers toward Pulaski County late Tuesday, hours after police say Jaccard shot three people in the Barren Springs area of Wythe County.
One of his Dyer Road neighbors, 45-year-old Joseph Bane, was killed. Another neighbor, 61-year-old Jerry Covey, was shot in the arm and is recovering. Pulaski County Deputy J.A. Radcliffe, 46, was shot in the back but was protected from serious injury by his bulletproof vest.
Police also believe Jaccard set fire to Bane’s house while his wife and son were still inside. They escaped without serious injuries.
Since Tuesday morning, teams from agencies in the New River Valley and beyond have combed through the Barren Springs area, working on foot during daylight hours and patrolling by car at night. More than two dozen units patrolled the area off Route 100 Wednesday night, Dunagan said.
Jaccard is very familiar with the area and is skilled with firearms, Dunagan said. It’s too dangerous to have teams on foot in the woods at night, he said.
A command post, where searchers are coordinating their efforts, has been set up since early Tuesday morning at Riverview Church of God, off Route 100 less than a mile from Dyer Road.
On Friday, officers plan to move the command post to another location, Dunagan said. The search has extended so far past its origin and where the post is set up that officers’ radios have begun to reach their service limits.
The new post will be set up closer to the Powhatan Camp in the Boy Scout reservation, Dunagan said.
“If the search extends far beyond our jurisdiction, the state police and marshal’s service are ready to take it over,” he said.
