The Roanoke Times| File April 1986

Stephen Urick (left) found his ex-wife's body in 1985. Audrey West's injuries indicated that her wrists had been bound. On Monday, a grand jury indicted William Ray Hagy Jr. on murder and rape charges in her death.

Photo by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Steve Urick sits on the front steps of his house with his dog Frisco Keeper. Suspicion surrounded him for years after the death of his ex-wife Audrey West. "Now, hopefully, everybody will understand that it wasn't me," he said.

Everyone who knew Cynthia Denise McCray called her Cindy. Her mother pushed her to get a job in day care because she was so good with children, but Roanoke police who investigated her death in 1984 believed she worked as a prostitute.

Audrey West modeled for clothing ads before moving into a large house on Walnut Avenue Southwest with her son and her third husband. The discovery of her body in May 1985 caused a media furor and cast a yearslong cloud of suspicion over the man who found her.

Both cases -- a 21-year-old black woman found dead under an overpass, a 33-year-old white woman found dead in her son's bedroom -- remained unsolved until DNA evidence tested in the past 18 months linked them to the same suspect.

On Monday, a Roanoke grand jury indicted William Ray Hagy Jr., 48, on a murder charge in McCray's death and murder and rape charges in the slaying of West.

"In my best day I would never have tied those two cases together," said retired Roanoke police Maj. Jake Viar, who supervised homicide investigations during the time period both women were killed. "This shocks me."

The grand jury also indicted Hagy on charges of abduction with intent to defile and rape in an October 1984 attack on a 17-year-old girl. Hagy was arrested at the time and charged with rape and sodomy, but those charges were dropped after the girl didn't come to court.

Hagy has been in prison since 1986, when he was sentenced in Roanoke Circuit Court to 50 years for sodomizing and raping a 14-year-old girl in November 1984. Roanoke prosecutors are aiming to prove that the crime was just one of a series committed by Hagy over a seven-month period.

Those who knew McCray and West credit Roanoke Detective L.P. Manning, the department's cold case specialist, for bringing the long-unsolved homicides to a resolution.

William Ray Hagy Jr.

Map

• See a map and timeline of the key events in the case

Capt. Chris Perkins said that Manning is responsible for re-examining more than 30 unsolved homicides and is constantly evaluating which ones to pursue based on evidence and advances in technology -- such as improvements in DNA testing. A new look at the McCray case showed "a lot of great evidence" that Manning decided to retest, and in May 2007 the state forensic lab reported a DNA hit tying her case to Hagy.

In the meantime, a call from Audrey West's son prompted police to reopen her case, and in April the forensic lab reported a DNA hit -- also implicating Hagy.

Though the two women had different backgrounds, there are similarities between the two crimes. "Without the DNA hit, those similarities would not have come to light," Perkins said.

Both women were strangled. McCray's partially clothed body was found Nov. 28, 1984, by the railroad tracks under the Interstate 581 overpass that goes over Campbell Avenue.

Stephen Urick, West's ex-husband, found her nude body in her son's bedroom. Her injuries indicated that her wrists had been bound.

Urick lived under a cloud of suspicion for years after West's death, even after blood samples eliminated him as a suspect in 1998. Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell emphasized that the new evidence clearly shows Urick had no involvement in the killing.

"Thank God it's over," Urick said Monday. "For 23 years and four and a half months, I've been a suspect. Now hopefully, everybody will understand that it wasn't me."

Urick recalled picking up his son at school and trying to pat the heads of young boys he had coached in soccer -- only to see parents pull their children away from him.

"I guess if you're a suspect, unless you're cleared, people talk. Now I guess they can't talk anymore."

The hardest thing he had to do after the nightmarish discovery of West's body was tell 6-year-old Brandon that his mother was dead.

"I can still feel his heart pounding against my heart," Urick said.

Holly Gillin, one of West's sisters, described her as a beautiful girl and a great mom. Following the lead of police, her family also suspected Urick, she said.

Her sister's killer "ruined Stephen Urick's life, made it very hard for Brandon, broke my father's heart and the rest of the family's."

Though McCray's death never drew the media attention West's did, her family remained haunted by it.

Dorothy McCray recalls her daughter as a joyful, trusting young woman. She was probably too trusting, McCray said Monday. "She thought everybody was her friend."

Cindy McCray had left high school before graduating. She enjoyed playing basketball and loved being around children, so much so that her mother urged her to work with kids.

But McCray wasn't looking for a job. An auto accident had left her a monthly settlement check, so she had income.

She ran with a wild crowd, Dorothy McCray said -- wild enough, anyhow, that she would never bring her friends inside to meet her mother. "She knew I wouldn't accept those friends," McCray said.

She learned of her daughter's death not long after Thanksgiving 1984. Cindy's grandmother had fixed turkey hash from leftovers, a treat that Cindy particularly enjoyed. But she never came home.

"It's a relief and it's a sadness ... all that coming back into my mind," McCray said. "It's a relief to know that before I close my eyes, I'll have closure."

Retired police Sgt. Covar Gardner investigated both cases. He said McCray had worked as a prostitute and he recalled interviewing other prostitutes after she was killed, but he learned little of use.

He also worked on the West case and was stunned to learn of the DNA evidence connecting the two.

"Cindy McCray and Audrey West lived two completely different lifestyles," he said.

No one involved with either case at the time seems to have heard of Hagy. Yet by 1984, he already had a noteworthy criminal record.

In 1980, when he was 20, he pleaded guilty to arson after admitting that he'd started a December 1979 fire that destroyed the Roanoke Livestock Market on 25th Street Northwest. He was released on parole in December 1983. He went to work on construction jobs with his father, who lived in Southeast Roanoke.

But on Nov. 19, 1984, according to court testimony, Hagy threatened a 14-year-old girl with a knife as she walked along Orange Avenue, forced her to perform oral sex and raped her.

At first the girl could not identify her attacker. But in July 1985, she spotted Hagy in Fallon Park and reported him to police. The next year a jury found him guilty of rape and sodomy despite his protests of innocence.

The attack on the 17-year-old happened three weeks before the 14-year-old was raped, and McCray's body was discovered just nine days later. West was killed two months before Hagy was arrested.

Hagy became eligible for parole in 1994 but remains incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison in Wise County with a release date scheduled for 2011.

His brother, Andrew Hagy, said Monday that the new charges are unfair. "He's got 30 months to go. He goes up for parole next month."

"He's been in jail all these many years, and now all of a sudden they're going to bring up these new charges," said his mother, Lula Hagy. "I don't believe, I never have believed, that he done what they said he done."

News researcher Belinda Harris and staff writer Neil Harvey contributed to this report.