‘Little Blue-Haired Lady’ Charged With Killing Roommate

An 88-year-old widow has been charged with beating to death a 50-year-old man who lived with her.

Virginia B. Davis was arraigned on murder charges Tuesday and released on $20,000 bail. She was accused of killing John E. Wimbrow by beating him in the head and chest with her fists or a blunt object in March 1997.

“I’m shocked,” the 100-pound great-grandmother said.

Her lawyer, Richard G. Brydges, said he was shocked, too. And skeptical.

“She couldn’t open a car door without help,” Brydges said.

“She’s just a typical little blue-haired lady.”

Police gave no motive for the slaying.

Davis was indicted after a yearlong investigation.

Brydges said that their relationship apparently began as a romance but that eventually Davis became Wimbrow’s caretaker.

“He was an alcoholic, as I understand it, and a very serious one,” Brydges said.

“He didn’t work much.”

After being fingerprinted at police headquarters - “I’ve never sat with an 88-year-old lady being fingerprinted before,” Brydges said - Davis kept asking the magistrate to repeat himself.

“She told him, ‘I think my batteries are down in my hearing aid,”’ Brydges said.