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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 5, 1991                   TAG: 9104050528
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From staff and wire reports
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

ANOTHER TRIAL ORDERED IN HUDDLESTON SLAYING

The Virginia Court of Appeals has overturned the 1989 capital murder conviction of Mark Duane Witt and sent his case back for another trial - the third since Witt was arrested in April 1988 for the 1984 slaying of William Alva Johnson of Huddleston.

In a separate ruling, the court upheld the first-degree murder and robbery convictions of Witt's brother, Dennis Todd Witt, for the same crime.

Johnson, 75, was found dead of multiple shotgun wounds in his trailer on Jan. 23, 1984.

The crime remained unsolved for more than four years until jail inmate Thomas Rebel Kersey told Bedford County authorities that he and his stepbrother had accompanied the Witts to Johnson's trailer on the night of the shooting.

Kersey and the stepbrother, Arthur Bucky Monday, accused Mark Witt of shooting Johnson and said the Witt brothers stole money and guns from the trailer.

The court testimony of Kersey and Monday was a cornerstone of the commonwealth's case in Mark Witt's first trial, in November 1988, but a Bedford County jury was unable to reach a verdict.

The prosecution produced additional witnesses, however, including two more Bedford jail inmates, and a jury imported from Nelson County found Mark Witt guilty of capital murder in March 1989. He was sentenced to life plus 66 years.

Mark Witt's appeal revolved around the introduction of certain items of physical evidence, and the question of whether the state had proved that a robbery had occurred, a necessary condition for a capital crime.

One of Witt's attorneys, Greg Elder, said the argument focused on a toolbox that belonged to Johnson. The prosecutor alluded to the toolbox in his arguments, which, Elder claimed, created the prejudicial inference that Mark Witt must have stolen the box and must have killed Johnson.

The court upheld the convictions of Dennis Witt despite the evidence. Elder said Dennis Witt's case will not be affected by the ruling on his brother's.

Dennis Witt, who was a month shy of his 18th birthday at the time of the slaying, challenged several rulings on evidence and the transfer of his case from Bedford County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court to the Circuit Court.

The three-judge panel said Tuesday the evidentiary rulings were "harmless error" and the appeal of the transfer was not timely.

by CNB