York County man shoots toward deputies during barricade standoff, then kills self
A York County man fired two rounds out of his second-floor window during an hours-long barricaded standoff with a SWAT team Sunday afternoon before shooting himself to death several hours later, according to authorities.
Just before 1:30 p.m. Sunday, York-Poquoson Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call about an argument in the 100 block of Rocky Road in the Hornsbyville area, where a man had been staying for a few days but was no longer welcome.
“They were trying to get rid of him or evicting him,” said York-Poquoson Sheriff J.D. “Danny” Diggs. “He had been drinking heavily, and it kind of went downhill from there.”
Diggs said that when sheriff’s deputies arrived, the man “threatened that he was going to shoot us,” and then “barricaded himself upstairs in the house.”
Early in the standoff, Diggs said, the man fired “at least two” shots out the home’s second floor window, though it didn’t appear to be a “deliberate aiming.”
“It was a quick pointing and kind of random shots out the window,” Diggs said. “We had surrounded the house because we were making plans to get him, and then he shot at least in our direction.”
The York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office SWAT team, assisted by a tactical team and armored vehicle from James City County, deployed tear gas into the home and took other tactical steps.
Diggs said deputies heard a gunshot from the home at about 5 p.m. and no more noise or communication afterward. The SWAT team entered the home at 6:40 p.m. and found the man had shot himself to death.
Diggs identified the man as Mark William Toward, 58, of York County. He had previously been convicted of a rape in Newport News and was charged with a litany of crimes in local courts over the years — including one of York’s most brutal homicides.
On April 1, 2004, Darlene Cotner, 59, was found stabbed multiple times — with her throat slit and her head nearly cut off — in her home on Old Taylor Road in a rural part of the county, according to Daily Press archives.
The case went unsolved for more than a year until June 2005, when Toward — who was living in the home and in relationship with Cotner’s daughter — was charged with first-degree murder. The case was dropped a few months later as the York Commonwealth’s Attorney sought more evidence.
“The prosecutor at the time did not believe we had enough to have a winnable case,” Diggs said.
Although the Sheriff’s Office asked the public for new tips in 2007, no one else was ever charged. Diggs said Monday that sheriff’s investigators don’t believe anyone else was involved.
“He was our only suspect, and we felt confident that he was the one who killed her,” Diggs said.
Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, pdujardin@dailypress.com
