Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 24, 1993 TAG: 9302240092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
ACCOUNT PLAYED FOR JURY YOUTH CONFESSED TO KILLING MAN
In a taped confession played for a Bedford County jury Tuesday, Brian Robertson explained why his father didn't drive away from a heated argument that ended in a slaying."The man kept running his mouth and you just don't run your mouth to Daddy," said Robertson, 17. "He's hot-headed."
So, rather than driving off, Robertson's hot-headed father, David "Doodle" Robertson, stayed and argued with Leonard Nathaniel Hodges over the price of a 1973 Nova that Hodges had for sale in his yard.
"I tried to get him to leave," the youth said in the statement made to a police investigator shortly after his arrest. But "you take a hot-headed man and somebody comes out running their mouth, that hot-headed man ain't going to leave."
In fact, an eyewitness to the argument - and to the violence that followed - testified Tuesday that the younger Robertson pleaded with his father as many as eight times to drive off.
Doodle Robertson didn't listen, though, and Hodges, 58, drunk and holding a shotgun, ended up face down in the doorway of his Thaxton home - four bullets in his chest.
"I thought he was going to shoot my dad," Brian Robertson said.
The tape was played for jurors during the second day of Robertson's murder trial in Bedford County Circuit Court. Robertson, a juvenile, is being tried as an adult.
He made the statements to Sgt. Ray Mayhew of the Bedford County Sheriff's Department following his arrest at the scene. On the tape, Robertson described the argument that led to his killing Hodges with a friend's .22-caliber squirrel-hunting rifle.
Here is his account:
He and his father had stopped at Hodges' home on Virginia 684 to ask about the price of the Nova. Hodges, who was sitting on his front porch talking with a young neighbor, Preston Caldwell, said he was asking $2,000.
"My dad said, `OK, thank you,' " he said.
They started to get back in their pickup truck, when Hodges called after them. He said, " `You ain't even looked at it yet,' " Robertson told Mayhew.
He said his father then replied, "I don't want to look at it. I ain't got that much money."
From there, he said Hodges became belligerent. He started cussing at his father. His father started cussing back.
Physically disabled, Hodges reached with his cane for a rifle that Caldwell, 17, had with him on that September afternoon. Caldwell had been squirrel hunting.
He wouldn't let Hodges get the rifle. Caldwell instead climbed in the back of the Robertsons' truck. Brian Robertson was a friend and he had offered to give Caldwell a ride home.
Caldwell stashed the rifle in the cab.
Robertson told Mayhew that his father then pulled the truck out into the road, but didn't drive away. He said Hodges disappeared into his house and came out holding a shotgun.
According to Caldwell, who testified earlier Tuesday, Brian Robertson then took the squirrel-hunting rifle and shot at Hodges, but missed him.
Doodle Robertson pulled the truck down the road about 30 feet, but again didn't drive away. This time, he got out of the truck and the cursing with Hodges continued.
"Then the man raised his gun up to about . . . under his armpit," Roberston told Mayhew. "So I didn't know what to do. So I just started shooting. And I shot, I think, about six times and I don't know how many times I hit him."
He went on to say that his father then drove off. They took the rifle back to Caldwell's house a few miles away, and then returned to the scene of the shooting.
There, he was taken into custody.
Mayhew, on the tape, asked if he meant to kill Hodges.
"No. I didn't even mean to hurt him. All I wanted to do was to get out of there," Robertson replied.
Finally, Mayhew asked if there was anything else he wanted to say.
"Yeah," he said. "I don't think the man should have started cussing us for asking a question."
Prosecutor Jim Updike hopes to use that statement to support his argument that Robertson didn't so much act in defense of his father, as he did to quiet the abusive Hodges.
Updike also put Hodges' widow, Peggy, and her son, Tommy Lawrence, on the stand. They testified that when he was taken into custody, Brian Robertson laughed at what had happened.
None of the arresting officers who testified Monday and Tuesday corroborated that statement, however.
Preston Caldwell further testified that he saw Hodges raise his shotgun to about his knees. "He started to bring his gun up," Caldwell said.
But Caldwell said Hodges never had the gun pointed at either Doodle Robertson or Brian Robertson. He testified that Brian Robertson shot Hodges before he raised the shotgun any higher.
Updike rested the prosecution's case against Robertson at the close of the day Tuesday.
Robertson's defense attorney, Harry Garrett, said he plans to complete his defense by noon, with the key witnesses expected to be Brian Robertson and Doodle Robertson.