Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 19, 1993 TAG: 9302190130
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
JURY CONVICTS WOMAN
Katina Lynn Zelenak gripped the table in front of her as the jury's verdicts were read. Her body jerked and she began to cry as Circuit Court Clerk Allen Burke read them, one by one. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.Zelenak, 20, had pleaded not guilty to the three charges: attempted robbery of pizza shop manager Stuart Arbuckle last June, conspiring to rob him and using a firearm to attempt robbery.
Zelenak, of Christiansburg, contended she was forced to drive the car used in the robbery because her then-boyfriend threatened her life and her family.
But prosecutors said Zelenak was the willing "wheel man" in the crime, and had lied to police too many times to be believed now.
They questioned why a woman who was so afraid of a man would write him love letters for a month after they both were arrested.
The jury took only about 30 minutes to decide that the prosecution's evidence was more believable than the defense's. It recommended Zelenak receive six-year terms for the attempted robbery and conspiracy charges and two years for the firearms charge.
Judge Kenneth Devore delayed sentencing until probation officers prepare a background report by April 1.
Zelenak and two Pulaski County men, Paul William Morehead, 21, and William Ray Smith, 19, were each charged with the Arbuckle holdup attempt.
Arbuckle, 25, testified Wednesday that it was Smith who approached him at about 2 a.m. June 2 at a Blacksburg bank night depository and ordered him to "hold it." The man was holding a shiny object in one hand. Arbuckle thought it was a gun.
Arbuckle, who since has moved from Montgomery County to Bedford County, also identified Zelenak and Morehead as being in the car that picked up Smith at the bank parking lot.
Arbuckle foiled the robbery attempt, then followed his assailants and called police on his car's cellular phone. When police stopped the car and Zelenak agreed to a search, they found two guns - including a chrome-plated .32-caliber handgun.
In a statement to police, Zelenak said the robbery was planned earlier that day because Smith needed about $300 to pay some court fines so he could be taken off probation.
The three also face charges in the June 1 robbery, abduction and shooting death of Lorna Raines Crockett, 32, manager of a Christiansburg shoe store.
The men face capital murder charges. Zelenak is charged with first-degree murder.
Arbuckle said Thurday he was "very happy" with the verdicts.
"It's just a relief to find out the justice system does work and I hope that it works all the way through, and hopefully bring a relief to other people, too."
Arbuckle was referring to Crockett's family. Her husband, Mike Crockett, attended the trial Wednesday.
Zelenak took the stand Thursday briefly in her own defense, telling the eight-man, four-woman jury that Morehead had put a gun to her ribs the evening of June 1 and also threatened her family.
Shaking and taking deep gulps of air, Zelenak began to cry and put a hand over her eyes when her attorney, Joe Painter of Blacksburg, asked her to look at the gun and identify it.
Zelenak said she believed Morehead because he had threatened her before with a gun.
"He put it in my mouth and pulled the trigger . . . and said if I ever tried to leave him that he would kill me," Zelenak testified.
Skip Schwab, assistant commonwealth's attorney, introduced several sheets of paper containing names of businesses and information about their bank deposits.
Zelenak, whom Schwab recalled to the stand in rebuttal as a hostile witness, admitted most of the handwriting was hers. But she said it was Morehead who got the information, then forced her to write it down.
"Paul said if we ever got caught then it will be my rear end, not his," Zelenak said.
She said she gave different statements to police about her involvement in the Arbuckle holdup attempt and the slaying of Crockett because she was scared of Morehead and of going to jail.
"I'd never been in trouble, not even as a juvenile, and I didn't know what else to do."
But Schwab hammered at the lies she had told authorities, suggesting she was saying whatever it took to be able to leave the police station.
Zelenak was almost released from the Police Department June 2 after agreeing to become a drug informant for state police. But then police learned Crockett was dead, and questioned her about the woman's purse found in the car.
Zelenak had told police earlier that the purse belonged to a friend who had ridden around with her the day before.
"They caught you in one big fat lie," Schwab said.
Zelenak agreed.
She told the jury that in her earlier statements, she was trying to pin the blame for the crimes on Smith. Zelenak said that Morehead had talked to her as they sat in separate police cars outside the Blacksburg Police Department.
"He said, `Put everything out on Ray,' so I did. I didn't know what to do."
Zelenak and Morehead had met Smith, 18 at the time, only a few days before June 1.
Zelenak said even though she thought she was going to be released from the police station that day, she knew she'd eventually be charged in the Arbuckle robbery attempt. And, she said, she knew they would find out about Crockett.
"If there would have been any way that I could have saved that lady's life, I would have."
Zelenak is scheduled to go on trial Tuesday on charges of abduction, robbery and first-degree murder of Crockett. Zelenak testified against Smith and Morehead at a September preliminary hearing, saying that both men fired a shot.
It wasn't until Aug. 18 that Zelenak told a Montgomery County investigator that both men had fired a shot. Until then, she had blamed Crockett's death on Smith.
Painter has said that Zelenak suffers from a multiple personality disorder, but the jury was not allowed to hear testimony about that.
Painter checked with his client several times throughout the trial, asking her who she was. Once, he walked up to the stand and quietly told her to feel the fabric of the witness chair to help remember where she was.
Prosecutors Phil Keith and Schwab objected when they heard Painter ask if she was Tina and when he said he wanted to make sure who he was talking to.
"Even during the trial yesterday, she became someone else for 10 minutes," Painter said after the trial. "That was my reason for doing my visual eye-check from the stand."
Keith said that even if Zelenak does have multiple personalities, it was irrelevant to this trial.
The Zelenak trial marked the first time newspapers and television stations filmed in Montgomery County Circuit Court. Last year, the General Assembly voted to allow camera coverage of court proceedings after five years of experimentation with a pilot program that included Bedford County.