Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 9, 1990 TAG: 9005090696
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Killed in the March 25 slayings at their home were Larry W. Walker, 42; his wife, Emily, 40; and their older son, Larry E. Walker, 17, known as Eddie. Each died from gunshots to the head.
Henrico police Detective Daniel O'Keefe testified Tuesday during a hearing in Henrico Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court that Rea initially denied killing the Walkers when he was questioned - with his father present - about 5 p.m. on March 31. He blamed someone named "Lee," and said he was waiting outside the house when the slayings occurred, O'Keefe said.
A half-hour later, Rea asked O'Keefe if he could talk to him without his father being present. It was then that he admitted to firing the fatal shots, O'Keefe testified.
When asked why he had killed three people he had been friends with for years, O'Keefe said Rea told him "he never liked Eddie," that Larry Walker "had been embezzling money from the Little League" and that Emily Walker "had been having an affair with his father."
In that second statement, Rea also told O'Keefe that he alone entered the house about 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 25, through an unlocked basement door while the Walker family slept.
His plan was to steal the Walkers' car and whatever money he could find so that he, his 14-year-old girlfriend, and another young couple, Christopher Palmer, 16, and Shelly Inge, 15, could run away together, O'Keefe said.
The family slept as Rea took the keys to Eddie Walker's 1989 Camaro and left in their car, O'Keefe said. Rea said he picked up his girlfriend, Jackie Lynn Kulp, and returned to the Walker house.
While Kulp waited in the basement, Rea said he took a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle into the house, the detective said. Eddie Walker, asleep on a downstairs sofa, was shot first. Larry Walker, apparently awakened by the gunfire, left his upstairs bedroom and was shot as he reached the bottom of the steps. Rea said he then ran upstairs and shot Emily Walker, according to O'Keefe.
Rea told O'Keefe that after the family was killed, he and Kulp rode around in the Camaro until about 9:30 a.m., when they picked up Palmer at his father's house. The three then rode around some more, hoping to meet up with Inge. But her mother wouldn't let her out of the house and she did not see her three friends again until after they were arrested almost a week later.
After hearing almost five hours of testimony, Judge Robert Smith transferred the charges against Rea and Palmer to Henrico Circuit Court, where both will be tried as adults.
Rea is charged with 21 felonies, including three counts of capital murder, and numerous counts of robbery, using a firearm in a felony and breaking and entering.
Palmer is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, grand larceny, two counts of using a firearm in a robbery and two counts of breaking and entering.
by CNB