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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 6, 1992                   TAG: 9203060389
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WOMAN CONVICTED IN KILLING OVER VCR

A Roanoke woman who fatally shot her estranged husband when their volatile relationship ended with a struggle over a VCR was convicted Thursday night of voluntary manslaughter.

The jury recommended that Josephine R. Jones be sentenced to 12 months in jail.

During a two-day trial in Roanoke Circuit Court, jurors were asked to decide if Jones was the back-shooting killer that prosecutors described, or if she was instead a desperate woman confronted by a violent man.

Jones, 24, testified Thursday that she accidentally shot her 26-year-old estranged husband, Keith, as they struggled at her Westside Boulevard apartment last Oct. 6.

She said that Keith Jones came to her apartment to pick up a coat for their 7-year-old son, but that an argument broke out when he decided to take a VCR as well.

As they struggled, Jones testified, she grabbed a gun on a dresser because she thought her husband might take it first. She fired the .25-caliber pistol as he knocked her to the floor, she told the jury.

Much of Jones' testimony centered on how her husband previously had assaulted her, abandoned her to date another woman, then returned to the apartment later during divorce proceedings to take property in violation of a protective order.

Defense attorney Richard Lawrence told the jury that his client "didn't do anything wrong but stay with the wrong man."

"There's a great deal more to this case than a VCR," Lawrence said. "You have to look at this case through her eyes."

But Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Ann Hill had argued that Jones was guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder - pointing out that Keith Jones was unarmed when he was shot in the back at close range.

Hill maintained that Josephine Jones had been overcome by rage ever since her husband left her for another woman. "She was not taking no for an answer, she was going to find him and make him pay," she said.

Although much of the defense was focused on Keith Jones' bad deeds, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom told the jury that "nothing he did would warrant capital punishment, but that's what he got."

"Keith Jones didn't get a day in court," Branscom said. "This lady was the judge, the jury and the executioner."

by CNB