First funeral for Appomattox slaying victims held

The first of several funerals for the victims of last week’s mass slaying in Appomattox County was held Sunday afternoon in Lynchburg under a shroud of fog and light rain.

Morgan Dobyns, 15, was remembered during a private service at Heritage Funeral Home on Graves Mill Road. The Dobyns family requested the funeral be closed to the media and no information about the service was released.

A funeral for Dobyns’ friend, 16-year-old Bo Scruggs, of Dillwyn, also had been scheduled for the same time in Appomattox. That service was postponed, however, because Scruggs’ father is hospitalized with heart problems, according to representatives with the Appomattox funeral home handling the arrangements.

At the Dobyns funeral, about 100 cars filled the parking lot during the service, which started at 2 p.m. A half-hour later, mourners began leaving; there was no funeral procession. The mood outside of the funeral home was quiet and low-key. By 3 p.m., the parking lot was empty.

Dobyns was described in her obituary as a vibrant girl with a bright smile. She loved to cook and bake and was looking forward to taking culinary classes next year at school. The Appomattox County High School sophomore, who moved to the area from Georgia last year, also loved animals and skating with her friends.

An online memorial page for her on the social Web site Facebook had more than 2,000 members by Sunday night, with friends posting memories and photographs. Those friends said Dobyns loved the color purple and urged students at her former high school in Georgia to wear that color today in her memory.

Dobyns moved to Appomattox in early 2009 from the Atlanta suburbs and lived in a home off of Snapps Mill Road in Appomattox County, where the shootings occurred, with her family and her uncle, Christopher Speight. Dobyns and her mother Lauralee Sipe, stepfather Dwayne Sipe and 4-year-old brother Joshua Sipe all were killed, along with Dobyns’ close friends and classmates, Emily Quarles and Bo Scruggs. Quarles’ parents Karen and Jon also died.

Speight, 39, of Spout Spring, has been arrested and charged with one count of first-degree murder of his sister, Lauralee Sipe.

Scruggs’ funeral has been rescheduled for Tuesday at 2 p.m. at Robinson Funeral Home in Appomattox.