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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 2, 1991                   TAG: 9102020415
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOST CONVICTED IN IN-LAW'S DEATH

A jury in Roanoke Circuit Court recommended that Harry Morton Smith, 51, serve 20 years in prison for second-degree murder and two years for using a firearm to commit a felony.

Smith had been charged with killing William Wade Gibson, 34, one of the guests at a party at his home on Longmeadow Avenue Northwest last Aug. 18.

Testimony during the two-day trial showed that Smith became angry at four guests as the partying approached 6 a.m., ordered them to leave at gunpoint, and then shot Gibson in the chest as he was getting into a car to leave.

Prosecutors Alice Ekirch and Joel Branscom had asked the jury to impose a life sentence.

"Whenever you have a killing that is as senseless and cruel and hateful as this case, you start looking at life," Ekirch told the jury.

But defense attorney BarryTatel described Gibson's death as an accidental killing that was clouded by alcohol and drug use by the defendant, the victim and two witnesses who described the shooting.

Testimony presented a "jumbled account of a tragic accident that was the result of too much booze and the unbridled use of drugs,"Tatel said. "This was no murder."

Smith, an employee at General Electric in Salem, did not testify.

Leah Penn, a woman who attended the party at Smith's home the night of the killing, gave the following account:

Smith and his four guests spent much of the night drinking from two half-gallons of gin and whiskey, smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine through a straw.

Shortly before 6 a.m., Smith apparently became tired of partying and ordered the guests to leave. When they did not leave the house immediately, Smith pulled a gun and repeated the order.

As the group was standing in the driveway, preparing to leave, Smith followed them out on a side porch and fired two shots.

The first shot was fired into the air; the second hit Gibson in the chest.

The jury deliberated for six hours before reaching a verdict Friday night. Smith, who was free on bond during the trial, was sent to jail to await formal sentencing.

Branscom said he may be eligible for parole in four years.

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