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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991                   TAG: 9102210565
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Short

TEEN FACES DEATH FOR SLAYING MOTEL CLERK

A judge has found a teen-ager guilty of capital murder in the robbery and slaying last March of a night clerk at a motel where the young man was staying.

Circuit Judge Edward Hanson issued the finding Wednesday at the close of the two-day trial of Ronald Murray, 19, who now faces either a death sentence or life imprisonment.

Murray's half-brother, 21-year-old Alfred Dallas Bastible Jr., pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in November and was sentenced to life plus 97 years. The two were accused in the execution-style slaying of Julie Benica, 28, during a robbery that netted $229.50.

Each blamed the other for firing the fatal shot into the back of the woman's head. But an accomplice who was the driver of the getaway car testified that Murray stopped to wash gunpowder off his hands after the slaying.

by CNB