Updated: June 9, 2011
By Janelle Rucker, The Roanoke Times

Roanoke, Va. — A number of chaotic calls came into Franklin County’s 911 dispatchers on Memorial Day between the time Deputy Jonathan Agee’s wife reported he was going to Salem to kill his ex-wife and when he was shot and arrested 38 miles away on Interstate 81.

Franklin County Sheriff Ewell Hunt has not released the dispatch recordings from that day, but allowed The Roanoke Times to listen to them. A full transcript will be available this week, said Hunt’s personal attorney, Bill Stanley. The raw recordings have no time stamps and don’t identify every caller. Franklin County is the latest jurisdiction to make public its dispatch recordings from Memorial Day, when police say Agee, 32, shot and killed Jennifer Agee in the parking lot of the Sheetz convenience store on Williamson Road in Roanoke and fled toward Montgomery County.

He eventually was stopped at Interstate 81’s Exit 127 after he had shot one state trooper in the leg. The Salem Police Department released its recording last week and the Roanoke Police Department followed suit Monday. In the Franklin County recordings, dispatchers repeatedly told callers — inquiring residents, dispatchers from other jurisdictions and area law enforcement — that they could not release information by order of the sheriff. Even when members of the tactical team that was paged to set up in Boones Mill called to ask what they were reporting for, dispatchers were hesitant to give details.

“Sheriff’s on the phone. He’s telling us not to release information,” one dispatcher said.

A dispatcher from Roanoke called numerous times and was unsuccessful in obtaining any information, according to the recordings. During one call, the Roanoke dispatcher asked if Franklin County officials were talking to Agee by radio and her Franklin County counterpart said a sergeant in another location had Agee on the telephone.

“Can you at least elaborate if he’s back in Franklin County?” the Roanoke dispatcher asked.

The Franklin County dispatcher responded, “We have no idea.”

At least one Virginia State Police trooper got frustrated with the lack of information after he told the dispatcher that he’d heard someone in a county K-9 cruiser had been involved in a shooting in Roanoke.

“Sheriff said to keep everything under wraps right now,” he was told. Hunt, who communicated with dispatch and other law enforcement agencies on his cellphone, said Wednesday that he never told dispatchers not to release the information to law enforcement. He is not heard on the tapes telling dispatchers to withhold information on the incident. But eventually, when asked by one of the two dispatchers on duty if they could release information, Hunt said, “if they are law enforcement, go ahead and tell them what it is.”

Last week, Stanley said the Franklin County dispatcher quoted in a transcript of a 911 recording released by Roanoke had misunderstood Hunt’s orders. Hunt had ordered the dispatchers not to disseminate information to the public. That did not include law enforcement, Stanley said. Hunt said that while his dispatchers fielded phone calls, he left a message for a Salem Police Department supervisor and had tried repeatedly to reach Jonathan Agee himself.

“Both myself and members of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office did everything possible, with the information that we had at the time, to alert the appropriate authorities as to the situation regarding Mr. Agee,” Hunt said in a statement last week.

Initially, Agee was put on administrative leave, but he was fired June 2, Hunt said. Agee has been charged with murder in Roanoke and unauthorized use of a county police vehicle. Montgomery County officials have said they plan to charge Agee with attempted capital murder of a law enforcement officer.

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