Rdtf
CNO
Joined: 13 May 2004
Posts: 2209
Location: BUSHville
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 Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 2:02 pm Post subject: Retired Army General Bard, a Vietnam Vet Stabbed to Death |
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This is a terrible loss. He was a decorated retired Army General, Vietnam Vet, West Point Grad AND Rhode Scholar - stabbed to death by a teenager.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783556666
| Quote: | Retired general stabbed to death
Teenager in custody; suspect's mother hurt in West End violence
BY JIM NOLAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jun 29, 2005
The tranquillity of an upscale West End neighborhood was shattered early yesterday morning when a retired Army general was stabbed to death in the middle of a street, police said, by a teenager who moments before had stabbed his mother in the chest and also wounded himself.
John C. Bard collapsed over a brick retaining wall in the 300 block of Albemarle Avenue with multiple stab wounds and a butcher knife in his back after struggling with the teen, identified by police sources as 18-year-old John Townsend Mustin.
Neighbors said Bard, 76 -- a former commandant of cadets at West Point and decorated Vietnam battalion commander lived nearby and was the close, longtime friend of the teen's mother, Courtney Cash Mustin, 58. He died at the scene.
Courtney Mustin was transported to VCU Medical Center and underwent surgery for her wound, which investigators said nicked her heart. She was listed in critical but stable condition last night.
Neighbors said the divorced Mustin lived with her son in a red brick Cape Cod on the cozy residential street in Lower Stonewall Court. Her other son and daughter were not at the house at the time of the attacks.
Investigators said the attacks began around 7 a.m. and likely originated in the bedroom of John Mustin, known as "Towney." They said the teen is believed to have gotten into an argument with his mother, during which investigators said he stabbed her once in the chest with a kitchen knife.
"Something snapped inside that house," said one police source familiar with the case.
Police said that sometime before or immediately after the stabbing, Bard was called to come to the house. Emergency 911 dispatch also received a call from the house to report that someone was bleeding.
Witnesses told police and The Times-Dispatch that they saw Towney Mustin emerge from his home bloody and wearing nothing but his boxer shorts around the time Bard pulled up in front of the house in his black Buick.
That's when, investigators believe, the teen attacked Bard in the street with the butcher knife, leading to a struggle that ended with Bard staggering down the block and collapsing in the front yard of a home across the street.
Neighbors said a passer-by rushed to Bard's aid and yelled for help, as the teen began wandering from the scene toward an alley across the street from his home.
The teen "was covered in blood," said one Albemarle Avenue homeowner who witnessed the aftermath of the attack.
The homeowner, who asked not to be identified, said he was alerted to screams for help from a woman who had gone to assist Bard. The homeowner said that when he went outside, he saw Courtney Mustin across the street in the doorway of her house. Then he saw the teen.
"I stared at him in the face from 2 feet away," the homeowner said. "There was just a blank stare."
The homeowner said the teen ambled down the alleyway, then abruptly turned to his left and smashed face-first into a wooden fence. Police arrived moments later and took him into custody.
Investigators said Mustin had multiple cuts on his body, at least some of which were believed to be self-inflicted. He was transported to VCU Medical Center and last night was listed in guarded condition and under police observation.
Police expect to file charges after consulting with the commonwealth's attorney's office.
The bloody domestic attacks unsettled neighbors in the sheltered residential enclave, where well-tended homes on modest lots command in excess of $500,000, and violence is something that happens somewhere else.
"Something like this doesn't happen here, it just doesn't," said Jessica Tongel, president of the Stonewall Court Civic Association, surveying the block ringed with yellow police tape.
Bard's Buick was still parked in the middle of the street. In the driveway was Mustin's silver Mercedes station wagon. In front of the home was Towney Mustin's white Jeep, with a Grateful Dead sticker on the rear fender.
Neighbors said Courtney Mustin grew up in Richmond and attended prestigious St. Catherine's School. After a divorce, she returned to Richmond from the Washington area and ran limousine companies here. They said she had been living in the house on Albemarle Avenue for more than 10 years.
Bard, who lived on Locke Lane, was a fixture at Mustin's house, according to neighbors who said he was the person who cut the lawn and strung the Christmas lights. "They were both very nice people, very friendly," said neighbor Mike Harris.
A native of Akron, Ohio, Bard enlisted in the Army in 1946. He later was admitted to West Point, graduating in 1954 second in his class of 633 cadets. A Rhodes Scholar, he received two degrees from Oxford University by 1960.
Retired Maj. Gen. Louis H. Ginn III of Richmond was in the same West Point class as Bard.
"There was never any question at West Point that John Bard would be a general," Ginn said last night. "There was just a question of how many stars he would have. He was one of the best."
Bard's military career included two combat tours in Vietnam he was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor and a Purple Heart and service as a brigade commander at Fort Hood, Texas, in 1974-75. For the next two years he served under Gen. Alexander M. Haig as a senior staff officer for the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. In 1977, he returned to West Point as commandant of cadets, where he retired in 1979 at the rank of major general.
After retiring, he worked in banking in the Washington area and later as president of the Aluminum Association, a trade group, which he left in 1988.
The property manager at Bard's building called the retired general a "first-class guy."
"My understanding is he had really helped out the kids down there," said Tommy Norris. "He was like a father to them. He was really crazy about those kids." |
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