Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 12, 1993 TAG: 9302120281
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WITNESS TESTIFIES IN TEEN'S SLAYING
The last of seven gunshots was to Percy Johnson's forehead at close range, as the dying 17-year-old lay face up on the pavement of a Roanoke street.A teen-age friend saw it all, she told a judge in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. By the time Dwayne Carlos Miller fired the final shot, she testified, he was standing directly over the fallen teen-ager.
Miller, however, contends he shot in self-defense, according to Assistant Public Defender Marian Kelley.
That issue will be decided in Circuit Court, where Judge Philip Trompeter sent the case after a preliminary hearing Thursday. Trompeter ruled there was probable cause to support charges of first-degree murder and use of a firearm against Miller, 18.
Police have said Johnson's death may have stemmed from an argument over a leather jacket.
Few details of the dispute emerged in court Thursday, although it was clear that Johnson and Miller had been feuding before the night of Jan. 24.
"What's up, punk?" is how they greeted each other in a chance encounter that night on Bridge Street, the witness testified. The girl, who prosecutors said has received threats concerning her involvement in the case, is not being identified.
She said she, Johnson and a third teen-ager were driving by when they spotted a group of teens on foot, one of them carrying a gas can.
If was only after they stopped to help did they realize that Miller was in the group, she said. "The next thing I knew, shots started firing," she said.
Johnson was unarmed and holding his arms in the air when the semiautomatic gunfire started, the girl testified. Police did not find a weapon on his body, according to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Mac Doubles.
However, defense witnesses are expected to say that Johnson had a gun.
As she drove off to find help, the girl testified, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Miller bending over the body, apparently examining the jacket Johnson was wearing.
Of the seven gunshots to Johnson's body and head, at least four were potentially lethal, Doubles said.
In her questions on cross-examination, Kelley suggested that Johnson was angry at Miller concerning an earlier altercation on 11th Street. "We're arguing that he was the aggressor in this matter," she said.
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