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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 6, 1990                   TAG: 9003062213
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

BIZARRE BEDFORD MURDER CASE GOES TO GRAND JURY

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.

Meador said that as he was thanking the man, he heard a gunshot and saw a "flash of fire."

"He [Spinner] 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.

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.

A grand jury is expected to consider an indictment in the case today.