Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 30, 1991 TAG: 9103300348
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF/ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As a result, the jury of seven women and five men convicted King, 37, of being an accessory after the fact to the robbery and murder of Carolyn Horton Rogers and sentenced King to 12 months in jail on each misdemeanor count. She had been charged with murder.
After deliberating for 5 1/2 hours, the jury also convicted King of forging one of Rogers' checks and passing two of her checks, recommending a sentence of three years in jail and a fine of $1,000 on those charges. She is to be formally sentenced May 17.
If Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Trabue upholds that sentence, King will be eligible for parole from the county jail in about 12 months, said Roanoke County Commonwealth's Attorney Skip Burkart.
King, of Montgomery County, had faced two life sentences plus 40 years in prison in the stabbing and robbing of Rogers and for the check charges.
Rogers was killed Oct. 11 in a vacant house she had listed for sale in Southwest Roanoke County. Becky King admitted calling Rogers under an assumed name and asking her to show the house on Foxcroft Circle to her and her husband, Danny King.
Although she did not testify in her trial, King had told authorities that she was outside the house getting a cigarette when Danny King killed Rogers. King said she had not known her husband was planning to kill Rogers, an agent for Mastin Kirkland Bolling Inc. Instead, she said, she thought they really were looking at a house to buy.
She also admitted driving Rogers' car to Tanglewood Mall, passing two of Rogers' checks and pawning the agent's engagement ring after the killing. King's attorneys, Jack Gregory and Vince Lilley, argued to the jury that their client did those things only at her husband's direction and out of fear that he would kill her.
But in his closing argument to the jury Friday - the fifth day of the trial - Burkart said the evidence indicated that King knew her husband was going to rob and kill Rogers. On top of that, Burkart said, King had helped her husband set up the crime, beginning last August while he was still in prison for another crime.
Becky King stole driver's licenses from her co-workers at a Blacksburg nursing home and used one license as fake identification to pass Rogers' checks, he said. Becky King also knew her husband was so broke he could not afford to put gas in a van he had stolen, Burkart said.
"She's with him every step of the way," Burkart told the jury. "It's just a lie. Just like everything out of her mouth is a lie."
But defense attorney Gregory told the jury that although Burkart could "put Becky there with a check in her hand or a ring in her hand," he could not prove that his client knew a murder was going to occur.
Jury foreman Derek Church said the jury agreed that prosecutors had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that King knew when she went to the house that her husband was going to kill Rogers.
"The problem was we couldn't ascertain what they were thinking," Church said. "We decided we didn't want to play junior psychologists," so the jury decided to go strictly on the evidence, he said.
The only testimony that gave any explanation for the murder was that Danny King went to the house on a contract killing, Church said. That came as hearsay testimony from a paralegal Becky King's attorneys took with them to Buckingham Correctional Center last fall to obtain a confession from Danny King.
The paralegal, George Harris III, told the jury Thursday that Danny King admitted killing Rogers in a murder-for-hire scheme that his wife knew nothing about. The defense had called Danny King as a witness, but he refused to testify, invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.
Burkart objected to Harris' testimony, saying he did not have the opportunity to cross-examine Danny King because it was hearsay. But Trabue allowed the testimony after Gregory and Lilley said they would put Becky King on the witness stand so she could verify the truth of Danny King's statement.
The defense attorneys decided, however, not to put their client on the stand, where she could be cross-examined.
Burkart told jurors they should not believe that Danny King made those statements to Harris. Even defense attorneys called Danny King a consummate liar, he said.
Burkart also argued that Becky King could have escaped from her husband a number of times after the Rogers murder, had she wanted to. She could have escaped while driving Rogers' car to Tanglewood Mall, or she could have asked for help while passing the checks and pawning the ring, he said.
But King did none of those things. Instead, she decided to keep some of Rogers' jewelry for herself rather than pawning it, Burkart said. "Does that show you're not part of it when she keeps the fruits of the crime?"
The Kings killed Rogers for about $1,300 - the money they got from cashing the checks and pawning the ring, Burkart said. The Kings needed money, he said. "They want easy money. They want blood money. That's all they care about."
But Gregory told the jury that Becky King simply "was in love with a career criminal - a man who would lie to anybody. . . . He set her up, he conned her, and she's sitting here today," Gregory said.
Burkart said he was surprised and disappointed by the jury verdict. "The jury would have had to place an incredible amount of reliance on the testimony of George Harris III."
Additionally, Burkart said, Trabue would not allow prosecutors to introduce love letters Becky King sent to her husband while she was in jail, to show that she was not intimidated by him. "Obviously, we're at a great disadvantage," he said.
Keywords:
ROMUR
by CNB