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

DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990                   TAG: 9007270147
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: COLONIAL HEIGHTS                                 LENGTH: Short

HICKS' LAWYER TRIES TO DISCREDIT WITNESS

A private fire investigator testified Thursday that a blaze that destroyed James Hicks' house in 1988 started in a rear den, not where a key prosecution witness in Hicks' murder trial said the fire was set.

Hicks is accused of hiring the prosecution witness, Reuben Gregory Barksdale, to kill his wife, Lena. Barksdale has testified that Hicks hired him not only for the killing but also to burn Hicks' Campbell County home two years earlier.

Barksdale had said that he started the fire in an upstairs bedroom near where the two wings of the T-shaped house joined.

But Richard T. Chance of Midlothian, a former state arson investigator now working privately, testified that the fire began near a wood stove in the den of the rear, one-story wing.

Hicks' attorneys hoped the testimony would cast doubt on the credibility of Barksdale, a 29-year-old high-school dropout.

Defense attorneys say Hicks - a 44-year-old Campbell County educator, farmer and owner of a 184-acre estate - had no reason to be involved in the killing or the March 2, 1988, fire.

But Campbell County Commonwealth's Attorney Neil S. Vener said Hicks was obsessed with the new house that was built to replace the burned home and had his wife killed for fear that he would lose it in a divorce.

Lena Hicks was killed in January on her 45th birthday.

Barksdale has pleaded guilty to capital murder, but has not been sentenced. Both he and Hicks face the possibility of the death penalty.

by CNB