Man charged in deadly 1972 fire in N.C.

WINDSOR, N.C., Sept. 2 (UPI) -- A 68-year-old man has been charged with killing his wife and two young children before setting fire to their North Carolina home in 1972, a sheriff says.

Bertie County Sheriff Greg Atkins said Roy Lawrence Rascoe was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Annie Elizabeth Smallwood Rascoe, 23, and their children Rita Renee Rascoe, 1, and Tony Ray Rascoe, 3, on Nov. 26, 1972, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot said Wednesday.

Atkins said Monday's arrest of Rascoe was based on new evidence, but the sheriff would not offer specifics of the new case information.

Lemon Smallwood, brother of Annie Elizabeth Smallwood Rascoe, told the Virginian-Pilot his pregnant sister and her two children were stabbed by Roy Lawrence Rascoe before the 1972 fire.

"The first time I saw him, I didn't like the looks of him," Smallwood, 62, said. "We heard he stabbed them three times in the back of the neck."

The Virginian-Pilot said Rascoe was recently released from a North Carolina correctional institution where he had been serving time for theft of government property.