Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990 TAG: 9007270631
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: COLONIAL HEIGHTS LENGTH: Medium
But testimony by the Charles Taylor and Charles Myers, both inmates at the Campbell County jail, may have been more favorable to the prosecution.
Under cross-examination Thursday by Commonwealth's Attorney Neil S. Vener, Taylor and Myers said their previous statements about jailhouse conversations with Hicks and Barksdale were not true.
Taylor, who was placed in Hicks' cell after a driving-related charge, initially testified that Hicks didn't discuss his case with anyone during his first few days in jail. That would have contradicted testimony earlier in the trial by another inmate that Hicks confessed to plotting his wife's murder shortly after his Jan. 16 arrest.
But during cross-examination Taylor said he had heard Hicks say he had been up all night painting the walls of his garage to cover bloodstains.
Taylor said Hicks told him he forgot to paint the ceiling, where investigators found blood splatters that resulted from Barksdale's beating Lena Hicks to death with a four-pound sledgehammer.
Barksdale pleaded guilty to the murder July 11, five days before Hicks' trial began. He said Hicks paid him $900 and forgave $800 in debts in exchange for the killing.
Concerned that Myers' testimony might also backfire, defense attorneys asked Circuit Judge J. Samuel Johnston Jr. if they could play a taped conversation between them and the inmate.
"Given what other people have done in this case, there is some uncertainty about what he might say on the witness stand," said co-defense counsel Bryan Selz.
Selz said Myers told him and co-counsel A. David Hawkins that Barksdale told Myers in jail that he made up the story about Hicks' involvement in Lena Hicks' murder. If Myers denied that on the stand, argued Selz, he wanted to play the tape to remind him of his previous statement.
In a hearing out of the jury's presence, Vener said he wanted to hear the tape before jurors returned and that he also wanted Myers questioned out of their presence.
On the tape, Myers said Barksdale told him he went to Hicks' home on Jan. 8 to steal from him and that he killed Lena Hicks because she surprised him in the garage.
Myers said on the recording that Barksdale told him Hicks did not hire him.
When he was brought into the courtroom, Myers admitted to Selz that he had told him those things about Barksdale, and the tape became unnecessary. However, under Vener's cross-examination, he also said he lied to Hawkins and Selz during the interview, which he had not realized was being recorded.
"Barksdale hadn't really told me nothin'," he said.
Myers said he lied to them because Hicks offered him money to do so. The bribe started at $5,000, he said, and kept rising until it reached $20,000 on the day Hicks was taken to Colonial Heights.
"I just want to tell the truth," Myers said Thursday, adding that he never received money from Hicks, a 44-year-old Campbell County educator.
Hicks' capital murder trial, now in its 10th day, was moved to Colonial Heights because of extensive media coverage.
by CNB