Unable to start Cassandra Daemon 1.2.4 with Java 8

Question

Hi I am using Cassandra 1.2.4 with Java 8(moving on from 7) as a service .I can run cassandra as a standalone process without any hassle, however when I use it with an Apache Virgo application(3.7.0.D-20150114193621) it fails. Following is the output in the status.out log file and nothing in the system.log.

+ case "$1" in
+ echo 'Checking status of Cassandra daemon......'
Checking status of Cassandra daemon......
+ is_running
++ get_cass_pid
+++ ps -fC java
+++ grep -w org.apache.cassandra.service.CassandraDaemon
+++ head -n 1
+++ awk '{print $2}'
++ echo
+ pid=
+ '[' x = x ']'
+ return 1
+ stat=1
+ case "$stat" in
+ echo 'Cassandra is not running'
Cassandra is not running
+ exit 1

I only get the below stacktrace in the virgo logs:

ERROR     TaskExec-1-thread-8      DE0005I Failed to start cassandra service

Since, it can run fine as a standalone process, there is no issue with setting the $CASSANDRA_HOME,$CLASSPATH or other variables. I have verified the API call from the application and looks like its not able to start the daemon. Also,any information relating to the cassandra logging will be helpful to debug.