A Roanoke County jury convicted Shane Stager of involuntary manslaughter Friday, rejecting his assertion that he shot in self-defense a man who had just stabbed his ex-girlfriend.

The verdict, which came late in the afternoon after a two-day trial, found that Stager did not act with malice, a legal element required for a more serious charge of second-degree murder that he had faced.

Stager, 46, of Hardy, was arrested April 8, 2024, after police were called to a Vinton apartment complex at about 4:30 a.m. and found 58-year-old Terrance Burton lying in a breezeway.

In severe pain from a gunshot wound to the abdomen that would prove deadly within hours, Burton told police that someone named Shane had shot him. At about the same time, Tara Dunbar came out of her Washington Avenue apartment

See Full Page