Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 6, 1990 TAG: 9003061949
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
Hawkins, a 23-year-old Bedford man, is accused of shooting Jimmy Vea Spinner along a backwoods road one night last November. Witnesses testified Monday that Spinner, 51, came upon Hawkins' truck that was stuck in a ditch along muddy Virginia 644 and volunteered to help Hawkins pull the truck out.
How or why the late night truck-towing ended with Spinner's death, though, was something two people - who were in Hawkins' truck with him - could not explain in court Monday.
Michael Meador testified that he, Hawkins and Hawkins' girlfriend were "riding around" rural roads of Bedford County drinking Old Milwaukee beers in Hawkins' pickup truck the night Spinner died. Hawkins and his girlfriend, Tracy Witt, were fighting in the truck which caused Hawkins to maneuver accidentally into a ditch, Meador said.
Meador and Hawkins worked unsuccessfully to pull the truck out when Spinner drove up the road, Meador said. He said the older man offered to help and promised to be back in five minutes with a four-wheel-drive truck. Spinner, Meador and Hawkins hooked up the trucks with chains and yanked Hawkins' pickup from the ditch.
As Meador was thanking the man, Meador said he heard a gunshot and a "flash of fire."
"He grabbed his chest and fell back four or five steps," Meador testified, as some of Spinner's family and friends in the courtroom began weeping.
The three got back in the truck and drove off, Meador said. When he asked Hawkins why he shot Spinner, Hawkins would not answer and kept driving, Meador testified.
Back in the city of Bedford, Meador said, he jumped from the car at a stoplight and subsequently went with his father to the Sheriff's Department. A few minutes later, he saw Hawkins and Witt arrive at the sheriff's office, where Hawkins was arrested.
Witt also testified, but said she could not remember what happened from the time the truck got in the ditch until the group arrived back in Bedford. Pressed by both Commonwealth's Attorney James Updike and defense attorney Richard Lawrence, Witt said she wasn't sure why she could not remember.
"I don't know whether I'm blocking this out or whether it was the blow to my head or what," Witt said. She testified that Hawkins hit her in the head during the couple's argument shortly before the shooting.
Witt also testified that Hawkins has threatened her since his arrest if she did not tell police that Spinner, too, had a rifle. Other witnesses did say that police confiscated two rifles - one apparently belonging to Spinner, the other to Hawkins.
Updike angrily advised Witt to tell the truth and reminded her that "it doesn't take me long to get a perjury indictment together."
Lawrence, too, questioned Witt's truthfulness. "This is one of the saddest cases I've ever heard," he said. "Something terrible happened at that road and we haven't heard what it was."
A grand jury is expected to consider an indictment in the case today.
by CNB