Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 24, 1990 TAG: 9007240268
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COLONIAL HEIGHTS LENGTH: Medium
He thought he might have heard her moan or take a few shallow breaths.
But a couple of hours later, as Lena Hicks' husband drove Barksdale home along that same road, the 44-year-old school administrator calmed Barksdale's concern.
Barksdale said James Hicks assured him there was nothing to worry about on an icy January night like that.
"He said, `If she's not dead, she'll probably die of exposure,' " Barksdale testified Monday at Hicks' trial on charges of hiring Barksdale to murder his wife.
Barksdale, who already has pleaded guilty to capital murder in the bludgeoning death, gave jurors a picture of Hicks as the cold, remorseless mastermind behind his wife's killing.
Barksdale described how Hicks pressured him into the murder with threats, gave him detailed instructions on how to carry it out, and took him through a practice run that afternoon. Hicks even gave him a lift home to Lynchburg after it was over, Barksdale said.
Hicks picked up Barksdale from an abandoned barn near where Barksdale had left Lena Hicks' body inside her white Mercedes - in a scene staged to look like a traffic accident, Barksdale said.
During the late-night drive back to Lynchburg, Hicks gave Barksdale nine $100 bills and also informed him that it had been his wife's birthday, Barksdale said.
"He said it was her 45th birthday," Barksdale testified. "And I said I didn't know it was her birthday.
"He said it'd be the best birthday present she'd got."
At that, a crowd of Lynchburg and Campbell County residents packed into the Colonial Heights courtroom Monday let out a gasp.
Barksdale, who spoke softly and matter-of-factly, suggested that sheer dislike was Hicks' motive for wanting his wife dead.
"He said, `She's a real bitch to me. I even have to get up and get the kids ready,' " Barksdale recalled Hicks as saying.
The Hickses' three young sons are living with a relative of Lena Hicks.
Barksdale, a 29-year-old carpenter who once rented an apartment from Hicks, told jurors that he went through with the killing because he owed Hicks money and was afraid Hicks might harm him or his family.
"I was deeply in debt and I just kind of went along with it. I was scared and paranoid."
A few days after the killing, Barksdale's friend and employer told Campbell County investigators that Hicks had made past requests that Barksdale kill Lena Hicks. After three interviews, Barksdale confessed to the killing.
But Hicks' defense attorneys say Barksdale killed Lena Hicks on his own during a robbery attempt and then decided to frame James Hicks.
In his opening statement, defense attorney A. David Hawkins scoffed at Barksdale's credibility.
He portrayed Hicks as a college-educated, hard-working "white male." Barksdale, he said, was a "black male" familiar with drugs and the courts.
Barksdale, who has three larceny convictions, cut a deal with the prosecutor, Hawkins has said. In exchange for testifying against Hicks, Barksdale will not be sentenced to death, Hawkins said.
Barksdale denied Hawkins' claims that he had told other inmates he had "an ace up his sleeve" to avoid the electric chair.
"You deny saying that?" Hawkins demanded during the afternoon-long cross-examination.
"What I said was I wasn't going to worry because I have the good Lord on my side," Barksdale answered.
Hawkins tried to hack at Barksdale's credibility by pointing out how details of Barksdale's story had changed since January.
"Are you aware that 50 times you stated there was no connection between yourself, Jim Hicks and murder?" Hawkins asked, waving a transcript of one of Barksdale's first interviews.
"You lied 50 times?" he said. "How many times are you lying now?"
"I haven't lied," Barksdale insisted. "I only want to bring the truth out."
During his day of testimony, Barksdale kept his head facing the jury box, away from the pale man hunched at the defense table, staring at the witness.
by CNB