Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 11, 1992 TAG: 9203110140
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Prosecutors said during a hearing Tuesday that when DeHart goes on trial April 1, they will try to prove he broke into the home of Effie Rakes during the night of June 7 with the intent to commit aggravated sexual battery.
Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood declined to elaborate, but authorities say they have suspected a sexual motive in the slaying from the start.
Sheriff's Department investigators say the invalid daughter was found in her bed, partially unclothed. Family members told investigators that the daughter, who was stricken with spinal meningitis when she was 18 months old, was not capable of undressing herself.
There was no evidence that the daughter had been raped, authorities said.
The woman is not able to speak or otherwise communicate what happened the night her mother was killed.
Attorneys for DeHart had no comment Tuesday on allegations of sexual misconduct.
DeHart, a 30-year-old carpenter, was arrested in August after his fingerprints matched prints found on a window frame outside the daughter's bedroom and on a Budweiser can found on a chair beside her bed.
Authorities have given this theory of the slaying:
Rakes awoke in the night and discovered someone in her daughter's room. As she went to the kitchen to telephone for help, the intruder climbed out of the window, ran around the house and fired one shot through a kitchen window, striking Rakes in the chest.
Her body was discovered the next morning by one of her five sons.
At a preliminary hearing, DeHart's attorney argued that his client had been framed. Keith Neely of Christiansburg suggested that a neighbor who later committed suicide was responsible for killing Rakes.
Tuesday, lawyers Neely and Bill Davis asked a judge to throw out a search warrant that sheriff's deputies used to obtain a pair of DeHart's sneakers.
The tread on the shoes matched an imprint found outside the daughter's bedroom, court records show.
Circuit Judge B.A. Davis III took the search warrant motion under advisement.
DeHart is charged with murder, using a gun to commit a felony, and breaking and entering with intent to commit sexual battery.
DeHart knew the victim. He grew up in a house overlooking the Rakes home in the Endicott community, and one of his uncles married one of Effie Rakes' daughters.
He is free on a $200,000 bond posted by his family.
by CNB