Race Factor Probed in Grisly Death

Virginia’s attorney general asked for a federal investigation to determine if the killing of a black man who was burned alive and decapitated was motivated by racial hatred. “If the allegations are true, there is no doubt in my mind that racism as well as robbery were motivations in this murder,” state Atty. Gen. Richard Cullen said in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno. Cullen said an investigation into a possible civil rights violation was “appropriate under the terrible circumstances surrounding this case.”