Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 8, 1993                   TAG: 9312080116
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

MOREHEAD PLEADS GUILTY TO CHARGES IN OTHER CRIMES

Less than a month later, Crockett was killed after a botched robbery attempt while she was making a night deposit for a Christiansburg shoe store. And authorities charged the same young man - along with others - with her death and the robberies in Pulaski.

Tuesday, Paul William Morehead, 22, pleaded guilty to two robbery charges and to malicious wounding - the last of the cases prosecuted against him for four robberies that stretched from Pulaski to Blacksburg.

Morehead, who already is serving life plus 44 years for his role in Crockett's death and robbery and for an attempted robbery of a Domino's Pizza manager, was sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison.

Two charges of conspiracy and one charge of wearing a mask were not prosecuted as part of a plea agreement reached with by Morehead and his lawyer, Cynthia Dodge, and the prosecution.

Morehead was scheduled to plead not guilty and be tried by separate juries. But last week, a plea agreement was reached and the matter was heard Tuesday in chambers by Circuit Judge Dow Owens.

Morehead - wearing an orange jail uniform, black lace-up combat boots and sporting a mustache and a beard he previously had shaved - answered the judge's questions about his decision to plead guilty with polite "yes, sir's" while his cuffed hands were crossed.

His father, Carl Morehead, sat beside him during the brief hearing, then rose to hug him as he left the room.

Although Morehead pleaded guilty Tuesday, he did not admit guilt. Morehead had planned to enter an Alford plea - in which a defendant does not admit guilt but admits there is enough evidence to convict him - but was not asked by the judge his reason for entering the guilty plea.

Steve Plott, assistant commonwealth's attorney, gave this summary of the evidence against Morehead:

On May 3, 1992, Mike Frost, a manager at the Pulaski Pizza Hut, was making a night deposit of about $2,500 at Premier Bank on East Street when a man dressed in black and carrying a baseball bat approached and threatened him, demanding the deposit.

Authorities say that man was Morehead, whom Frost has said he knew in high school and worked alongside at Pulaski Furniture.

Plott told Judge Owens that Morehead fled to a car where Katina Lynn Zelenak - Morehead's then-girlfriend, who previously worked at the Pizza Hut - was waiting. Plott said the information about the Frost robbery is based largely on information provided by Zelenak.

In the second robbery, which occurred May 10, 1992, Jim Duke, owner of Jim's Steak House in Pulaski, was robbed as he made his way home from his restaurant with a deposit bag.

Plott said Zelenak and Brent A. Cook were the co-conspirators and providers of information to police.

Cook, 20, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty last year to robbing Duke, malicious wounding, conspiracy to commit robbery and wearing a mask in public to conceal his identity.

"Mr. Morehead was not the actual person who robbed and maliciously wounded Mr. Duke; however, he was deeply involved," Plott said Tuesday.

Morehead had worked for Duke, Plott said. Zelenak, Cook and Morehead followed Duke as he dropped off employees to their homes, then went to his home on Randolph Avenue.

Cook surprised Duke and struck him with a baseball bat, Plott said, but Duke was not seriously hurt.

"Mr. Cook was only able to get away with a bagful of change. . . . Mr. Morehead got all of that," Plott said.

Plott estimated the change was about $29.

According to a news release from the commonwealth's attorney's office when Cook was sentenced, the three traveled to Christiansburg where they used the money to pay for a meal in a restaurant.

Zelenak, 21, still faces trial on charges for her part in the two robberies. She and William Ray Smith, 19, of Pulaski were the other co-defendants in the Crockett murder case. Each received life in prison.