Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 13, 1991 TAG: 9102130353
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: INDEPENDENCE LENGTH: Medium
A jury deliberated about 75 minutes before convicting Reeves of the sexual assault charges, but not of kidnapping. The woman admitted she had lied when she initially said she was forced into the car Reeves was driving in Marion the early morning of April 15, 1989.
But the car she described - later found parked near the town police department - was owned by Barbara Jean Hagy, 47, whose body was found the next day on Pugh Mountain in Smyth County. She had been beaten to death. No charges have been filed in that case.
Reeves, 28, was convicted last year of kidnapping, robbing, sodomizing and trying to kill a U.S. Forest Service employee Oct. 13, 1989. Nearly one year later, a Smyth County jury recommended two life sentences plus 100 years in prison. A presentence report was ordered and no sentence has been formally imposed.
Reeves also faces charges of two knife-point rapes in Tennessee that happened about the time of the attack on the Forest Service worker, and with the February 1989 slaying of a 27-year-old Craven County, N.C., woman.
Because of the publicity in Smyth County, the kidnap and rape trial was moved to Grayson County.
Defense attorney Michael Untiedt concentrated on discrepancies in statements the woman made about the attack. Under cross-examination, she admitted lying to police when she first said she had been forced into the car because "usually if you tell them you got in the car, they say you got what you deserved."
She said she had been "kicked out" of the Blue Ridge Job Corps Center in Marion and had been living with a male friend in Marion for several months. She was walking home after having a few beers and smoking a marijuana joint with some friends, she said, when a man offered her a ride for the last two blocks.
But she said the man drove by her residence and took her to an isolated back road, where he began hitting her. "He told me he had a gun. He told me, `I'm gonna blow your brains out if you don't do what I tell you to do,' " she said.
She said he forced her to undress, raped and sodomized her, and then put his hands around her neck and said, " `I'm gonna show you what love's all about.' " She said she lost consciousness and later found herself alone. She dressed and managed to stagger back into Marion and the Police Department.
Dispatcher Mary Rouse said the woman was bloody and unsteady on her feet. Dr. O.O. Smith Jr., who saw her at the Smyth County Community Hospital emergency room, said a blunt instrument had been used to make four lacerations across the top of her head. He also saw bruises on her neck.
Another trial witness, Laura Jean Woods, said she was with Reeves at a dance until about 1 a.m. and at a Hardee's restaurant in Marion until he left to walk home between 1:30 and 2 a.m. She said Reeves had been drinking too much at the dance to drive.
His mother, Bertha Reeves, testified that he got home about 3:30 a.m.
Hagy's daughter testified that her mother had left her apartment that morning at 1:50 a.m.
Untiedt argued that Reeves could not have gotten Hagy's car, picked up the woman and done all the things she described within that time frame.
A residential adviser at the Job Corps Center described the woman as "not so up-front" about telling the truth.
Smyth County Commonwealth's Attorney Roy Evans said the defense concentrated on the woman instead of the defendant. "Please try and remember who is on trial here. . . . Do not make her the victim again," he told the jury.
"Who has more reason to lie?" asked Susan Oglebay, former assistant prosecutor who was acting as an attorney for the woman. Despite the different statements given by the woman, Oglebay said, she never changed what she reported about the attack itself.
The woman testified that her attacker took off his clothes and she saw no distinguishing marks or scars. During Reeves' 10-minute testimony, Untiedt had him take off his coat and tie and show the jury a U.S. Marine tattoo on one shoulder. Evans, noting that the attack occurred at night, had Reeves do the same thing with the courtroom lights turned down.
Trooper Robert Campbell said the woman showed no hesitancy in picking Reeves out of a police lineup seven months after the incident. "When she walked through the door, she focused right in on Mr. Reeves. That was obvious," he said.
by CNB