Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 15, 1992 TAG: 9201150171
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
TEEN GUILTY OF RAPE AND SODOMY
A 17-year-old Montgomery County youth pleaded guilty Tuesday in Circuit Court to raping a teen-age girl and sodomizing a young boy.Thomas Junior Collins was charged as an adult in the rape of a 13-year-old girl and the forcible sodomy of a 7-year-old boy. The two offenses were separate incidents, but both occurred in June.
Collins will be evaluated by the state Department of Corrections to see if he qualifies for punishment under the Youthful Offenders Act. Montgomery County Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore delayed sentencing until the evaluation is completed.
Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith said Collins was at the Montgomery County pool in the county park off U.S. 460 on June 28 and went for a walk with the girl along a nature trail in the park.
Keith said that Collins began to kiss and fondle the girl, telling her that she had led him on. The girl tried to push Collins away, but he threw her on the ground and raped her, Keith said.
The forcible sodomy on the 7-year-old also occurred in June, Keith said.
Collins' attorney, Dutton Olinger, said Collins was "not proud of these events and he's sorry for what has happened."
Olinger said Collins was raised by his grandmother after his father was killed in a traffic accident when the defendant was 6 and his mother became comatose when he was 12.
Collins has been held in the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home and has been well-behaved while there, Olinger said, making good grades in the seventh-grade-level classes he is taking.
After the state evaluation, Collins will be returned to court to tell the judge if he wishes to enter the youthful offender program, which lasts up to four years, Keith said. According to the State Code, those sentenced under the program must be released after serving three years and placed on supervised parole.
In a separate case, Thomas R. Sparks, 36, of Princeton, W.Va., pleaded guilty to 25 indictments of breaking and entering and grand larceny.
Keith said most of the offenses were committed on two occasions in November and December 1988, when Sparks and a co-defendant came to Blacksburg from West Virginia and stole property from several homes after breaking into them.
Devore sentenced Sparks to 39 years - two years for each breaking-and-entering indictment and one year for each grand-larceny indictment. After serving nine years, the remainder will be suspended and Sparks will be placed on probation for 10 years.