Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 27, 1991 TAG: 9102270474
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Strickler's attorney, William Bobbitt, citing Virginia's so-called "trigger-man rule," argued Tuesday before the Virginia Supreme Court that the evidence presented in Strickler's June trial in Staunton was insufficient to prove that he was an active participant in Whitlock's murder.
Bobbitt admitted that Strickler obviously was involved in Whitlock's abduction, robbery and killing in January 1990, but he said that in order to uphold the capital murder conviction it must be proved that he actually delivered the fatal blow.
Whitlock, a native of Roanoke who was a student at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, was kidnapped from a Harrisonburg shopping mall, taken to a wooded area in Augusta County, stripped and hit over the head three times with a 69-pound rock.
Strickler was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. His case has been automatically appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Bobbitt argued Tuesday, however, that there was no forensic evidence nor any eyewitnesses to prove what actually happened at the murder scene. He contended that another man, Ronald Lee Henderson, could have dropped the rock on Whitlock's head.
Henderson is to stand trial next month in Winchester.
Bobbitt said Strickler could have been turning the car around while Henderson killed Whitlock, or he could have been with a third person who may or may not have been with Strickler and Henderson on the night of the murder.
"There are lots of possibilities," Bobbitt said.
The existence of this third person, a woman, remains uncertain. Witnesses at Strickler's trial gave conflicting testimony about whether this mystery woman was with the two men. Authorities say they still are investigating, but have no positive leads on the woman.
"There's certainly evidence that both Strickler and Henderson were involved in the homicide," Bobbitt told the justices, "but it's not clear what roles they played."
Bobbitt also argued that Whitlock could have been unconscious at the time of her death, making it possible for one person alone to have committed the murder.
But Assistant Attorney General H. Elizabeth Shaffer, who argued the appeal Tuesday, dismissed that theory. She said there was no evidence of any other serious injuries to Whitlock prior to the fatal blows.
Therefore, it must have taken two people to kill Whitlock - one to hold her down while the other pounded her with the rock.
"Leann Whitlock was alive," Shaffer argued. "And it would be utterly contradictory to human nature for a victim just to lie there and have the life crushed out of her like that."
She said the evidence was sufficient to prove that Strickler jointly killed Whitlock. Virginia law permits a capital-murder conviction and the death penalty when there are joint participants in a murder and robbery.
"The nature of the murder weapon is critical in this case," she said of the rock, which had been wheeled into court on a dolly for Tuesday's arguments.
She invited the justices to pick up the rock and imagine trying to drop it on someone who wasn't being held down.
Shaffer also cited the testimony of Donna Kay Tudor at Strickler's trial. Tudor, who met Strickler and Henderson at a Staunton nightclub shortly after Whitlock was murdered, said she overheard the two men say they had gotten into a fight with "it" and kicked "it" in the head so that "it" wouldn't give them any more trouble.
Tudor said they called "it" a "nigger," and she testified that Strickler said they used a "rock crusher" on "it." Shaffer said that was enough to prove that the two men acted together.
Bobbitt argued, however, that Tudor testified she was never sure what Strickler and Henderson were referring to in their conversation. She never said they were talking about a murder.
Shaffer also cited Tudor's testimony that Strickler's clothes had bloodstains when she met him the night of the murder and that his knuckle had been freshly skinned.
Strickler told Tudor he had suffered the skinned knuckle earlier that night in a fight and that's also why his clothes were bloody.
Yet, Shaffer pointed out, at Strickler's trial there was no other explanation for the skinned knuckle and Bobbitt had no testimony from anyone who had been in a fight with Strickler earlier that day.
A decision on Strickler's appeal is expected to be issued in April.
In a related matter, Augusta County Circuit Judge Thomas H. Wood, who presided over Strickler's trial, has decided to remove himself from Henderson's trial.
by CNB