Police seek tips in death
Published 10:28 pm Friday, September 15, 2017
By Jordan Miles and Morgan White
Virginia State Police are seeking information in connection with the death of a 33-year-old woman in Buckingham County.
According to Mitch Toney, the victim was his daughter, Tricia Noel Toney.
Neal E. Fore, 29, of Cumberland — who was with Tricia prior to her death and who lived with her — is charged with driving under the influence and driving without a valid operator’s license and for improper use of a “farm tag” license plate, according to Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller.
According to Geller, Fore was found standing over the female’s deceased body in the 2300 block of Gravel Hill Road at about 5:54 p.m. on Thursday.
“When Trooper G.T. Lee responded to the 2300 block of Gravel Hill Road, there was no crashed vehicle. Instead, he discovered a female lying in the roadway and a male subject standing over her,” Geller said.
She said the adult female was deceased.
“Her remains were transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond for examination, autopsy and positive identification.”
Fore is being held at Piedmont Regional Jail without bond.
“Fore was driving a late 1990s/2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee that is light-brown in color, has ‘farm use’ tags and is missing its front bumper.
Fore did stop at the scene. Fore and the female had been traveling in the Jeep together prior to her death. The circumstances surrounding her death are still
under investigation,” Geller said.
“I don’t want revenge, but I want justice for my daughter,” Mitch said. “I want to make sure that no other father out there is going to have to go through what I’m going through. …”
Mitch said his daughter had a bubbly, friendly outgoing personality.
“She loved riding horses,” Mitch said. “She loved being a mother hen to the kids and playing with the kids — all of her nieces and nephews and her own two kids.”
He said his daughter liked adult coloring books and loved music — including Jason Aldean and Mitch’s music.
“She used to sing with me and played a little bit of piano and just liked to sing some Jewel songs and stuff like that,” Mitch said.
He said Tricia also enjoyed family functions, fishing and anything to do with animals.
“That’s the bad thing right now. You feel — woulda, coulda, shoulda — everybody wishes they could have done more to help her,” Mitch said.
According to Mitch, Fore had lived with Tricia for more than a year in a house she rented from her step-father and mother.
“She called me, you know, about 10 minutes after (1 p.m.) on Thursday and she was crying and she said, ‘Can I come and live with you?’” Mitch said. “She said, ‘I’m tired of arguing and fighting with (Fore), and I told her, I said, ‘You can always come home, it may not be the ideal situation in here, but you’re always welcome to come home whenever you want and you can stay here whenever you need to.’”
Mitch said when he got off the phone with her she sounded very positive and was ready to move in with her father.
“Four and half hours later she’s dead in the road,” Mitch said. “…I was told that she was driving my mom and dad’s car earlier that morning — that’s what she drove back and forth to work — that she had packed up all of her belongings in the car and that he had thrown away the keys and busted the windshield out with his fist. So knowing that she was serious about moving in with me, it wasn’t some flippant, ‘I want to come home’ and then not show up.”
Mitch said Tricia had been working for him at Weiser Security for about a month and loved her job.
“You could tell by the way she had started carrying herself that her self esteem had improved and she was happy. She loved it (and) all the employees there loved her. She was always very friendly to everybody,” Mitch said.
He said it was comforting to him that his last words to her were, “I love you.”
Anyone with information about Tricia’s death and/or recall seeing the Cherokee in the vicinity of Gravel Hill Road, is asked to call the Virginia State Police at (434) 352-7128 or #77 on a cell phone or send an email to questions@vsp.virginia.gov.