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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080464
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JACKSONVILLE, FLA.                                LENGTH: Medium

DEFENSE HINGES ON STARK ATTACK

A USS Stark sailor was having a flashback to a 1987 Iraqi missile attack when he killed a woman and her 3-year-old daughter, his attorney said in closing arguments Thursday.

Prosecutors countered that Thomas Taylor Jr.'s post-combat stress was no excuse for raping and killing 21-year-old Paula Smits and killing her daughter, Amanda.

The case went to the jury, which deliberated four hours before being sequestered overnight. Deliberations were to resume today.

The Persian Gulf attack that killed 37 of Taylor's shipmates aboard the Mayport-based ship was the centerpiece of the defense's case in the murder trial.

The ship returned home just days before the Aug. 8, 1987 killings.

Defense attorney Ann Finnell claimed in opening arguments that Taylor, of Salem, Va., who met Smits the day before, went to her apartment to have sex, then began suffering delusions that she was an Iraqi agent out to harm him.

"He's having flashbacks to the missile attacks. His dead friends are with him. He's living a nightmare," Finnell said.

Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey argued Thomas was not insane. She said he tried to hide the murder weapons, a hammer and knife, and a bottle of wine he drank.

"He raped her and he killed her and he killed the only other living witness that could testify against him," Corey said.

A second child, an infant, was unharmed in the attack, but suffered dehydration before the bodies were found two days later.

Fellow prosecutor John Phillips used clay models of the victims' heads and had an employee dress in Smits' nightgown to show the killings were cold-blooded.

Taylor had claimed he had consentual sex with Smits, but Phillips showed the jury how her nightgown had been carefully slit down the front with a knife.

The defense countered that the nightgown was slit to make a gag to stifle non-existent screams.

Corey urged the jury to find Taylor guilty of first-degree murder, rather than opt for other possible guilty verdicts.

"It is an insult to label the murders of Paula and Amanda Smits as less than first-degree murder," she said. The state is seeking the death penalty.

by CNB