5 Shot To Death At New Year’s Party

A man was arrested Sunday for allegedly shooting three men and two women to death after an argument at a small New Year’s party.

Robert Michael May, 27, was charged with one count of murder and eventually “will be charged with all the murders,” said Maj. J.L. Viar, the Roanoke police department spokesman.

The victims were found dead early Sunday in a three-room apartment in a carriage house. The couple that rented the apartment were among the dead.

“He has admitted the offenses,” Viar said of May. The gunfire apparently followed “a party-type atmosphere that became heated,” he said.

When police officers arrived, they saw a man later identified as May walking in the back yard and saw he had a bloody hand.

May fled and was later captured at a friend’s house in the city, police said. An empty .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun was found near where police first spotted May.