Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991 TAG: 9104040363
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
After hearing testimony in Roanoke General District Court, Judge Julian Raney ruled there was probable cause to support a second-degree murder charge against Sterling Nathaniel Oakes.
Oakes, 54, is charged with stabbing 48-year-old William C. Bowyer of Boones Mill at his Morgan Avenue home the night of March 8.
Witnesses testified Wednesday that Bowyer, drunk on vodka and beer after a night of playing cards at Oakes' home, refused to leave when he was asked.
"He said, `I'm not going home,'" testified Robert Crouch, who was at the house that night. "If I leave, then the law will have to take me away," Crouch quoted Bowyer as saying.
Tilda Caldwell, Oakes' fiancee, said the argument got so heated that she sent Oakes to his bedroom and ordered Bowyer out of the house.
But when Bowyer insisted on staying where he was, Oakes came out of the bedroom with a fillet knife in his hand. Bowyer then got up from his kitchen chair, approached Oakes and began to taunt him, Crouch testified.
No one who testified Wednesday actually saw what happened next.
Crouch said he saw Bowyer approach Oakes, then stumble back and fall on the floor. An autopsy showed that Bowyer had been stabbed three times in the chest, said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Alice Ekirch.
Bowyer died early the next day at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
In a statement to police, Oakes admitted that he had stabbed Bowyer after the man approached him in a threatening manner, police Detective C.B. Tinsley testified. Although defense attorney Carr Kinder hinted that the stabbing might have been in self-defense, Ekirch noted that Bowyer was not armed at the time.
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