Friday, February 29, 2008
Charges filed over '07 killing in Forest
A Moneta man who had been an assistant principal at a Chesapeake school has been accused.
BEDFORD -- A Moneta man was arrested Wednesday evening in Campbell County and charged with murder in the death of his estranged wife, according to Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown.
Jocelyn Earnest, 38, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in her Forest home in December, Brown said.
Wesley Earnest, 37, has been charged with first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Officials are not divulging much information about the case at this point to prevent "tainted proceedings," Bedford County Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Krantz said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. Associated search warrants filed in circuit court have been sealed.
At this time little is known about the relationship between the couple. Krantz said a divorce of the two had not been finalized. Jocelyn Earnest filed for divorce in 2005, according to court documents.
The Earnests owned two homes in Bedford County -- one in Forest near the Bedford County-Lynchburg line and another at Smith Mountain Lake in Moneta. Both Jocelyn and Wesley Earnest are named as co-owners at each property. The Earnests built the Forest home in 1995, and they purchased the home at the lake in 2001, according to Bedford County real estate records.
Jocelyn Earnest, a project manager for Genworth Financial in Lynchburg, lived on Pine Bluff Road in Forest. She was found dead there Dec. 20 by a co-worker who went looking for Earnest after she failed to show up at work and could not be reached by telephone, officials said.
Wesley Earnest had worked as an assistant principal at Great Bridge High School in Chesapeake since 2006.
Chesapeake Public Schools spokesman Tom Cupitt said Wesley Earnest was at work Dec. 19 until the end of the school day and all day Dec. 20.
Cupitt said Thursday that Wesley Earnest had not returned to work since late January, when he took leave. School officials did not specify what kind of leave Wesley Earnest was on or if he had been receiving pay for the past several weeks.
Chesapeake Public Schools suspended Wesley Earnest without pay effective Thursday. School board member Harry Murphy, whose daughter attended Great Bridge High last year, said of Wesley Earnest: "He came to us highly recommended from his previous place of employment. I'm very disappointed."
Wesley Earnest left Heritage High School in Lynchburg to work in Chesapeake. Lynchburg Public Schools spokeswoman Treney Tweedy said he was an assistant principal for eight years.
When he was hired by Chesapeake Public Schools in 2005, Wesley Earnest did not have a Chesapeake-area address, Cupitt said. School officials understood that Earnest would be renting a room and commuting to and from Moneta for work, Cupitt said.
Court documents show Wesley Earnest's address as Clearwater Drive in Moneta, which is located on Smith Mountain Lake.
The Earnests wed in West Virginia in 1995. She was a graduate of West Virginia University, where she played basketball on a full scholarship. The couple moved to Forest after marrying, and Wesley Earnest took a job with Bedford County Public Schools before going to work for the Lynchburg school system.
Wesley Earnest was arrested Wednesday in the town of Rustburg in Campbell County at a residence where he has been known to stay, Brown said. He is being held without bond at the Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority's Bedford Adult Detention Center.
Krantz said a bond hearing will be scheduled, likely for early next week, once a lawyer for Wesley Earnest either is retained or appointed.
Staff researcher Belinda Harris and The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot contributed to this report.
