Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 23, 1990 TAG: 9006230279
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Medium
Despite Archie's tearful testimony - in which she claimed she blacked out during the few minutes it took to kill Audra Kinder - the Giles County Circuit Court jury deliberated 75 minutes before returning the verdict.
Archie's attorney, Ed Jasie of Blacksburg, had tried to convince the jury that Archie was legally insane the morning of Feb. 4, 1989, when Audra's skull and two arms were fractured and her stomach was either kicked or punched.
Jasie immediately filed a motion asking Circuit Judge A. Dow Owens to set aside the jury's verdict because the evidence did not support a first-degree murder conviction.
Jasie had asked on Thursday that the charge be dropped to second-degree murder, but Owens denied the request.
Commonwealth's Attorney James Hartley said it was one of the most significant cases in his six years as Giles County's prosecutor. The jury's decision also will have "far-reaching implications" for other child-abuse cases in Virginia, Hartley said.
"It's an indication about how the jury felt about child abuse," he said after the two-day trial. "There was just no reason for that little child to have this done to her."
Archie, 25, with short, black hair and dressed in a short-sleeved blue shirt and tan pants, spoke very softly. Hartley and Owens asked her many times to speak up.
During nearly three hours of testimony, Archie told the jury there was a "time lapse" the Saturday morning Audra died at her father's Giles County trailer.
Gary Kinder, 29, Audra's father and Archie's boyfriend, had gone to work that morning and Archie was changing Audra's clothes when she saw "red marks on her private parts."
Archie believed those marks were signs that Audra had been sexual abused by her mother, Tambria Hobbs, 24, with whom Audra visited two days a week.
After she saw the red marks, Archie said she blacked out.
The next thing she remembers was holding the unconscious child in her arms and noticing that her pupils were dilated, she testified.
Audra was taken to Roanoke Memorial Hospital where she died the next day - seven days after her third birthday.
Archie testified that a few days later, while she was in the Montgomery County Jail, she remembered one portion of the time lapse.
"I remember I heard a thud, and then I was shaking her," she said.
Dr. Carl McGraw of Saint Albans Psychiatric Hospital testified that psychological tests showed Archie to have a "strong psychotic potential." If placed under a certain amount of stress, she could become insane, he said.
Dr. Morgan Scott, also of Saint Albans, testified that Archie had what most people call a nervous breakdown the morning of Audra's death.
But Dennis Cropper of New River Valley Mental Health Services testified for the prosecution that his tests showed there was no evidence that Archie was insane.
However, the strongest piece of evidence to support the defense's insanity case was never seen by the jury.
It was a videotape of a session with Scott in which Archie was injected with sodium amytol, or truth serum, and hypnotized so she would recall what had happened.
The videotape, shown after the jury was removed, showed a near-hysterical Archie telling Scott she had thought Audra was Hobbs and that she hurt Audra because she thought she was hurting Hobbs.
"I get her and I shake her and I keep shaking her and I tell her to stop, stop, stop hurting Audra," Archie said while lying on a table.
Owens said he would not allow the jury to see the tape because some of Scott's questions were suggestive and leading.
Archie, who had been living with her parents in West Virginia, was being held in the Tazewell County Jail.
by CNB