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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 29, 1991                   TAG: 9103290411
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Southwest bureau
DATELINE: INDEPENDENCE                                LENGTH: Short

HIT-AND-RUN TRAIL STAYS IN GRAYSON

A judge declined Thursday to move Dale Woodroe Testerman's hit-and-run trial out of Grayson County but said he would reconsider if finding a jury became a problem.

Testerman is charged with felony hit-and-run and involuntary manslaughter in the Nov. 2 deaths of Ernest and Montie Sutherland, a couple well known in the Grayson County community. Their bodies were found near their car after they had left an Independence residence to return home.

Attorneys James Turk and Robert Jenkins of Radford gave Circuit Judge Willis Woods a file of news articles about the case, including some that went into Testerman's prior driving record.

"That worries me," Woods conceded. "But, Mr. Turk, you're asking me to assume that a significant portion of Grayson County has not only read those articles but placed some importance upon them . . . to the extent that we could not find an impartial jury in Grayson County."

Turk noted that a Smyth County case was moved last month to Grayson County because of pre-trial publicity. "I don't see the distinction between that one and this one," he said.

Woods told Turk he could renew the motion, "but I am not satisfied at this time that we can't get a fair and impartial jury in Grayson County."

A trial date has not been set. Edwin Shaffer, assistant Wythe County commonwealth's attorney, was named prosecutor after Grayson County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul X Bolt disqualified himself.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB