Wednesday, October 27, 1999
Card-game slaying goes to grand jury
One neighbor shot other, witness says
BY DAVID ECK
Enquirer Contributor
LEBANON — The case of a South Lebanon man accused of fatally shooting a neighbor after a card game is heading to a Warren County grand jury.
James Roark, 60, was charged with aggravated murder and felonious assault in the Oct. 16 shooting of Jacqueline Sue Burns in her Morrow Road apartment.
The bullet that killed Mrs. Burns, 48, also grazed the head of apartment manager Kenneth Sunnycalb, who was seated next to Mrs. Burns on a couch.
The case was bound over to a grand jury after a hearing Tuesday in Warren County Court. Mr. Roark is being held in the Warren County Jail for lack of a $500,000 cash bond.
The shooting occurred after Mr. Roark and Mrs. Burns played two hands of “high card,” Mr. Sunnycalb said at the hearing. Mr. Roark won the first hand for $100, and the two played a second hand for double or nothing. Mr. Roark won that hand, too, and asked Mrs. Burns how she was going to pay him his $200.
She told him she would settle the debt when she got paid, Mr. Sunnycalb said.
Apparently that didn't sit well with Mr. Roark.
“I heard a clicking sound and a gun went off,” Mr. Sunnycalb said. “The bullet hit me. It tore a piece out of the top of my head.”
He also saw blood coming from Mrs. Burns. “She wasn't moving,” he said.
After the shooting, Mr. Roark jumped up and threw the gun down, Mr. Sunnycalb said. He was the only witness called during the hearing.
Mr. Sunnycalb had been drinking and was likely intoxicated when the shooting took place, he said under cross-examination.
Mr. Roark, dressed in a prison jumpsuit and wearing handcuffs and leg shackles, leaned in his chair while Mr. Sunnycalb was speaking. At times he slowly shook his head “no.”
The homicide was the second in South Lebanon in four months.
The death of Tony Temar, 30, a Deer Park contractor who was found shot in the trunk of a burning car July 4 on Mason-Morrow-Millgrove Road remains unsolved.
Some South Lebanon residents expressed shock Mr. Burns would be accused of killing the woman everyone knew as “Sis.” They described him as a quiet man.
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