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

DATE: THURSDAY, March 11, 1993                   TAG: 9303110354
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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MURDER SUSPECT GUILTY IN BEATING

Nellie Sue Whitt testified Wednesday that she had nothing to do with beating up her boyfriend's estranged wife last October.

Roanoke County Circuit Judge G.O. Clemens disagreed and convicted Whitt of misdemeanor assault and battery.

Whitt - who faces an unrelated murder charge in Bedford County - will be sentenced on the assault-and-battery charge on April 28.

In Bedford County, Whitt is charged with running over her fiance with his pickup truck in July 1991.

Whitt claims it was an accident. Prosecutors contend that Whitt persuaded Roy Willard Thompson - who was separated from his wife at the time - to make her the beneficiary of his $100,000 life insurance policy and then killed him to collect the money.

In Roanoke County, Whitt was charged with malicious wounding in connection with the Oct. 23 roadside beating of Karen Stanback, the estranged wife of Whitt's current fiance.

Stanback testified that Whitt - who is about 6 feet tall and weighs more than 200 pounds - pummeled her with her fists so badly that she needed stitches to close a cut above her eye.

Whitt and her fiance, Michael Stanback, testified that they were nowhere near the Catawba section of Roanoke County when the attack took place.

But a Catawba woman who witnessed the attack later identified Whitt in a police photo lineup.

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