Suspect charged in baseball-bat slaying

Almost two years after a fatal baseball-bat beating outside Wood Grill Buffet, Albemarle police have charged a convicted robber in the deadly attack.

Roderick McDowell, a 25-year-old whose last known address was on Barracks Road in Albemarle, was indicted on two counts by a special grand jury. He faces first-degree murder and robbery charges.

McDowell, who is serving time at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, appeared by video Wednesday afternoon in Albemarle Circuit Court. He was assigned William Tanner as a court-appointed attorney. McDowell is scheduled to return Feb. 26, when another date will be set in the case.

At about 1:30 a.m. April 12, 2007, police responded to an assault at Wood Grill off U.S. 29 just north of Charlottes-ville.

When they arrived, they found a man and woman who had been attacked by a pair of assailants wearing ski masks.

The victims had been beaten with a baseball bat.

William W. Godsey and his wife, whom police have not identified, were both injured but conscious and able to talk to police.

Godsey’s wife was a manager at Wood Grill, and her husband routinely met her when she closed late and had the bank deposit bag, which the assailants stole that morning.

Police obtained a general description of the attackers and the getaway car from the victims and “a number of witnesses,” Lt. Greg Jenkins, who heads the Albemarle police investigations division, has said.

The couple described one assailant as tall and thin and the other as short and stocky. The getaway car was described as dark and small to mid-sized.

Two weeks after the robbery, the 48-year-old Godsey, of Schuyler, died of head and body injuries at the University of Virginia Medical Center, according to police.

In court Wednesday, McDowell acknowledged that he was incarcerated at the Albemarle-Charlottes-ville Regional Jail on other charges. According to Albemarle Circuit Court records, he was sentenced to seven years in prison after a jury convicted him of robbery in 2007, but he filed for an appeal in February 2008.