Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 25, 1992 TAG: 9202250163
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Medium
GIRL CONVICTED OF SLAYINGS IN GILES HEARING
A 15-year-old girl was found "not innocent" in Giles County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Monday of killing a county couple last summer.Not innocent is the juvenile court term used for a finding of guilty.
Judge Patrick Graybeal withheld sentencing until a social history - similar to a presentence report for an adult - is returned on March 23.
Authorities have not released the girl's name, but residents have identified her as Maddie Riggs, who was 14 at the time of the shootings.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Richard Chidester said after the hearing that he has filed a motion asking Graybeal to release the girl's name in the interest of public safety.
The public has the right to know who she is and what she has been convicted of, he said. Graybeal has not ruled on the motion.
The bodies of Lee Hutchison, 62, and his wife, Shirley, 57, were found by sheriff's deputies on June 2, a Monday. Each had been shot once in the chest with a .357-caliber handgun. Authorities believe they were shot sometime that weekend.
The girl has been held in a juvenile detention home in Christiansburg since her arrest last June.
Riggs' court-appointed attorney, Colin Gibb, had waived a public trial, meaning the hearing was closed to the public and the media because of the defendant's age.
Riggs pleaded not guilty to four charges - capital murder, first-degree murder and two counts of use of a firearm in commission of a felony.
Though Riggs was charged with capital murder, she could not be tried as an adult under Virginia law because of her age at the time of the murders. The maximum sentence she could receive is incarceration in a juvenile detention facility until she is 21, Chidester said.
About a dozen people - Riggs' family, Lee Hutchison's mother and some witnesses - were allowed to remain in the courtroom during the hearing, which lasted just over two hours.
Chidester called nine witnesses. The defense offered no evidence.
Chidester said a motive for the killings is still speculative, but that the girl apparently took a handgun from a relative's house, then later went to the Hutchison home to seek a ride into town. Chidester said there may have been a struggle for the gun or for car keys.
Neighbors of the Hutchisons have said the girl sometimes came around trying to bum a ride to Pearisburg.
Chidester wouldn't comment on reports that Riggs had a previous juvenile record or had taken other vehicles about a week before the Hutchisons were killed.
Reporters and other observers, peering through courtroom door windows, could see Riggs alternately biting her fingernails and listening intently to testimony.
"It was a very well investigated case by the Sheriff's Department," Chidester said after the trial. "Everything pointed . . . to the the defendant."