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Former Winchester, Va. officer talks about when he met Monongalia Co. shooter

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In 1999, Lenny Millholland was the city sheriff in Winchester, Va. when he found himself negotiating with Jody Lee Hunt to give up a hostage he was holding at gunpoint.

Hunt had accosted his pregnant ex-girlfriend at her job, a company in Winchester that has since shut down.

Fifteen years later, Millholland, a guest on MetroNews “Talkline,” said there was no mistaking the man he saw on national news on Dec. 1. “I saw it on TV and I saw Jody Hunt,” said Millholland. “Minus the tattoos, I knew who he was.”

Millholland can’t help but wonder if Hunt, the Monongalia County man who committed suicide after killing four people in Westover and Cheat Lake, couldn’t handle rejection.

“In the beginning when we got there, he had the gun pointed at her and everything else,” described Millholland of the 1999 incident. “But, through the negotiations with him, ironically, we traded her for a can of soda. So, at that point you’re thinking — is he really doing this for meanness or is he doing it for spite because she broke off the relationship with him?”

According to Millholland, Hunt spent hours holed up in a men’s restroom before the standoff ended peacefully without injuries.

“After everything fizzled and seven hours into it, we got him to give the gun up, then he got prosecuted by the Commonwealth of Virginia and subsequently by West Virginia.”
Hunt had initially kidnapped the ex-girlfriend, Melisa Lynn Burkett in Hampshire County, W.Va.

“Up in Romney, he had kidnapped her there,” said Mulholland. “Apparently he posted bond and they released him. Then, she went to work at Lear in Winchester and then he showed up and subsequently took her hostage.”

Hunt’s violent rampage on Monday started in Westover where he killed the owner and operator of a business competitor, Doug Brady.

In Cheat Lake, Hunt murdered his former girlfriend, Sharon Berkshire, and her friend, Michael David Frum.

Jody Taylor, Hunt’s cousin, was the fourth victim in the killing spree.

Twelve hours after the first shooting, police found Hunt dead in his vehicle in the Monongalia County community of Everettville from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Hastings Funeral Home in Morgantown is handling services for Frum and Berkshire. A funeral is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 5 for Frum. Arrangements for Berkshire were incomplete on Wednesday afternoon.

McCulla Funeral Home in Westover is in charge of final arrangements for Brady and Taylor. Funerals for them are scheduled for Friday, Dec. 5.

A vigil for Hunt was planned for Wednesday night at his business, J&J Towing, located in Westover.





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