Former Manassas teacher Kevin Ricks was able to lure vulnerable teenage boys into his life for 32 years, leading to secret, drunken sexual attacks while deftly ducking police and school administrators. His international trail of abuse came to a halt in a Virginia courtroom Thursday with a guilty plea that ended his teaching career.

This Story

Ricks, 50, acknowledged in Prince William County Circuit Court that he took indecent liberties with a 16-year-old boy who had been his student at Osbourn High School. The conviction means Ricks must register as a sex offender, and he could face as many as 10 years in prison at his sentencing Oct. 28.

He didn’t suffer a heroic death in the line of duty, but friends and family from the community, as well as officers from five local law enforcement departments showed up to memorialize and remember six year old canine officer Dan, who died earlier this week in Roanoke Rapids.

Read more …

The city will get help from the engineering firm which did the Rochelle Park restoration on which plants can be safely trimmed without compromising the erosion control measures done for the project.

Several people in the neighborhood have complained the restoration effort, designed to rid the park of dangerous ditches up to 10 feet deep and control years of erosion, have made the park an eyesore. They have also complained the wooden fence surrounding the riparian buffer is unsightly.

Read more …

Two men allegedly involved in a roofing scam in Roanoke Rapids are being held in the Edgecombe County Jail for exploitation of the elderly.

Investigation by Roanoke Rapids police Detective Frankie Griffin led to warrants being served in Edgecombe County for Vincent Craig Moore, 38, and Jeffery Carmichael, 43.

Read more …

Brian Baker’s future is being groomed on Lake Gaston.

It is a future which could take the 16-year-old Roanoke Rapids High School junior to a professional career in the increasingly popular world of wakesurfing, a sport where the surfer rides a wake created by a specialized boat that takes the rider on a trip for as long as their endurance holds out.

Read more …