ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 4, 1997 TAG: 9701060071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
Screwdriver slayer given 24 years
FAIRFAX - A 16-year-old Springfield boy was sentenced Friday to 24 years in prison for helping kill a 13-year-old with a screwdriver.
Jason Garrison admitted taking part in the stabbing last year of Jonathan Hall. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as his trial was to begin.
Because of the severity of the crime, Garrison likely will serve 85 percent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole, said Joe Fedeli, co-director of Fairfax Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Garrison and James Murray, an ex-convict convicted of first-degree murder in August for his role in the slaying, had blamed each other for Jonathan's death. Murray, 44, was sentenced to life in prison.
Jonathan was stabbed more than 60 times with a Phillips-head screwdriver. A police diver found the body in an iced-over pond Dec. 28, 1995, 12 days after his family reported him missing.
- Associated Press
DMV ex-clerk admits fake-license scheme
FAIRFAX - A former Department of Motor Vehicles clerk pleaded guilty to making and selling fake driver's licenses.
John Wesley Leake Jr. admitted Monday that he used the names and Social Security numbers of legitimate license holders to make license cards carrying the pictures of drug dealers and business contacts who paid him.
Fairfax County Circuit Judge Langhorne Keith sentenced Leake to two years in prison, but suspended all but one month of the sentence. Keith also ordered Leake to pay $355 in restitution.
Leake will be jailed in Fairfax for the remaining month of his sentence.
Leake, 30, was a clerk at the Chantilly office of the DMV before his arrest in August. He was charged with six counts of forgery of public documents.
The investigation of Leake began in June, when an informant told police that Leake manufactured and sold Virginia driver's licenses, according to an affidavit filed in Circuit Court.
- Associated Press
Trolleys again ply Richmond streets
RICHMOND - Trolleys are back on city streets after an absence of 21/2 years.
The service was inaugurated Thursday. The trolleys will operate from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday on two routes in downtown Richmond.
Mayor Larry Chavis noted that Richmond's history of trolley service began with the invention of the electric streetcar in the city in 1888. The rubber-wheeled trolleys started running in 1985, but were canceled in 1994 for lack of money.
This time around, the service won't cost the city anything. It is paid for by federal grants, corporate and government sponsors and fares of 25 cents per ride.
Jack Berry, executive director of the Metro Richmond Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the trolleys will be a hit with tourists.
``Everyone I talked to is just delighted that the trolleys are back,'' he said.
- Associated Press
`Good Samaritan' robber gets 55 years
RICHMOND - A bandit who robbed three motorists who had stopped to help him has been sentenced to 55 years in prison.
Jamal Winston, 20, was sentenced Thursday in Henrico County Circuit Court. He was convicted in September of malicious wounding and three counts of robbery.
Winston and a friend, Wesley Smith, robbed the three motorists and Smith shot one of them in November 1995. Winston and Smith had the hood up on their parked car as a lure.
Smith was sentenced in July to 27 years in prison for his role in the robberies.
- Associated Press
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