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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 2, 1990                   TAG: 9003023393
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

JURY CONVICTS MAN IN STABBING DEATH OF DRINKING BUDDY

Robert "Murdock" Edwards, an ex-con who hung out with a crowd of alcoholics on Melrose Avenue in Northwest Roanoke, was convicted Thursday night of stabbing one of his drinking buddies to death.

A jury in Roanoke Circuit Court set a 20-year punishment for Edwards in the second-degree murder of William Mays Gibson.

Gibson, 34, was stabbed 25 times in the chest and back and left lying in front of a vacant house on Melrose Avenue last Sept. 5, after a night of heavy drinking with Edwards and another man, Windsor "Salt 'n' Pepper" Ladson.

The trial centered on the testimony of Ladson, 54, who said he saw Edwards stab Gibson.

Ladson testified Wednesday that the three men had been drinking for hours before the attack, which he said was unprovoked.

Edwards, 42, denied the killing, saying he was nowhere near the vacant house where it allegedly happened about 3 a.m.

"Whoever killed him needs to be in jail," Edwards testified. "But they got the wrong person here."

by CNB