ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140039
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FLOYD
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
Valentine's Day comes during an unproclaimed domestic violence week here in Circuit Court, as the first of three murder trials involving broken relationships concluded Tuesday.
Wesley Ray Sowers faces a possible life prison term after pleading no contest to shooting his girlfriend, Vera Goad.
According to court testimony, Goad, 56, wanted to break up with Sowers after she and her boyfriend returned from a vacation at Myrtle Beach.
Sowers, who was 41 at the time, confronted Goad at her trailer on the night of April 30 armed with a pistol and rifle. Goad's daughter, Michelle Ratcliff, testified that her mother ran from Sowers, screaming and begging for her life.
Sowers pursued Goad as she ran across the road to the porch of a neighbor's trailer, Ratcliff said. There, she said, she watched as he fired two shots from a .44-caliber pistol. The shots were fatal.
"I shot her. And now I'm going to shoot myself," Ratcliff said Sowers told her. But the shot he fired after pointing the pistol to his head missed. After two more clicks indicated the gun was empty, Sowers drove away.
He was arrested about two hours later at a nearby residence.
Judge Ray Grubbs revoked Sowers' bond and ordered him to remain in jail until a March 12 sentencing hearing.
Two other 1995 Floyd County homicide cases are scheduled to be heard during the coming week.
David Joel Hall will be tried Thursday for the alleged beating death of his 18-year-old girlfriend, Ellen Marjorie Plocki.
Virginia Denise Lomax, charged with shooting her boyfriend, Daniel Westley McPeak, will be tried Feb. 20.
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