The Waterkooler

U.S. Army to review Wagner's Arlington placement

U.S. Army leadership is reviewing the placement of an urn last week at Arlington National Cemetery holding the cremated remains of a man they learned Wednesday killed a Hagerstown couple in 1994, Lori Calvillo, cemetery public affairs officer, said Thursday.

Cremated remains of Russell Wayne Wagner, 52, who was an Army Private 1st Class from 1969 to 1972, were placed with standard military honors July 27 at an Arlington National Cemetery columbarium. He died Feb. 2 at the Maryland House of Correction Annex in Jessup, Md., while serving two life sentences for the Valentine's Day 1994 murders of Daniel Davis, 84, and Wilda Davis, 80, at their West Wilson Boulevard home in Hagerstown.

• The Davises' bodies were found stabbed repeatedly on Feb. 15. Their hands and feet were bound with black shoelaces and pillowcases were placed over their heads, according to published reports.
  
  
• The Davises' family is fighting to have Wagner's ashes removed from the columbarium, which is a structure for cremated remains.
  
  
• Wagner met the requirements for the columbarium service because he was discharged honorably from the military,. Requirements to have a ground burial at the cemetery are more stringent.
  
  
• In 1996, a Garrett County jury heard Wagner's case, but returned hung. In 2002, the case was heard in Washington County, but the jury in that trial returned with guilty verdicts for two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of felony murder and burglary, according to published reports.
  
  
• In the 2002 trial, now-Washington County Deputy State's Attorney Joseph Michael, in his argument to the jury, suggested that Wagner and at least one other person entered the Davis home and stabbed the couple to death so that the wife of Ted Monger, the couple's son-in-law, would inherit $50,000, according to published reports.
  
  
• Three prosecution witnesses testified in the 2002 trial that Wagner said he was at the Davis home when the murder was committed. A hair that a DNA expert for the FBI said possibly was Wagner's was found on a glove with Daniel Davis' blood on it.