Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 14, 1993 TAG: 9304140229
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
TRIAL OF MOREHEAD IN SLAYING OPENS
A Pulaski County man who has been convicted of participating in a robbery there with Paul William Morehead testified Tuesday that the two had discussed robbing someone at a Hills Plaza night deposit in Christiansburg.Morehead, 21, went on trial Tuesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court on a charge of capital murder in the June 1992 shooting death of Lorna Raines Crockett.
Crockett, 32, of Pulaski, was a Shoe Show store manager who was robbed, abducted and shot to death after making a night deposit at the First National Bank branch at Hills Plaza.
Crockett was found dead in her car the next morning.
Morehead pleaded not guilty Tuesday to seven indictments: capital murder, robbery and abduction of Crockett; attempted robbery and conspiracy to rob Stuart Arbuckle, a Domino's Pizza manager who was almost held up about six hours after Crockett was shot; and two charges of using a firearm to commit the crimes.
Arbuckle, 25, foiled the robbery attempt, then followed his assailants and called police on his car's cellular phone. When police stopped the car, they found two guns - including a .32-caliber handgun authorities later determined was used to kill Crockett, who was married and the mother of three sons.
Brent Alan Cook, 20, pleaded guilty in October to robbing the owner of Jim's Steakhouse in Pulaski, malicious wounding, conspiracy to commit robbery and wearing a mask in public to conceal his identity.
Cook was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
He testified Tuesday that he had discussed robbing Hills employees in Christiansburg with Morehead and Morehead's girlfriend, Katina Lynn Zelenak.
Zelenak pleaded no contest to the charges involving Crockett's death earlier this year and was sentenced to life plus two years in prison.
A jury found her guilty of attempting to rob and conspiring with others in the Arbuckle hold-up and sentenced her to 14 years in prison.
Cook testified that the three had discussed robberies and how to carry them out and had cased the Hills Plaza several months before Crockett was killed.
Cook also said that about two months before Crocket was killed he had gone with Morehead and Zelenak to Blacksburg where they planned to have Cook rob an employee of Four Star Pizza making a night deposit.
Cook said he was supposed to approach the car as a deposit was being made, but decided not to.
Cook was one of 12 prosecution witnesses the jury heard Tuesday afternoon. The trial resumes today.
It took almost three hours to impanel a jury because 25 prospective jurors were questioned four or five at a time. Three were excused because they either did not believe in capital punishment or their religious beliefs would not allow them to decide to impose the death penalty should Morehead be found guilty of capital murder.
Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith told the jury that Morehead owned the gun used to kill Crockett. And he said Morehead's statement to police the day he was arrested included admissions he committed the crimes.
Keith also said there may be testimony from someone that Morehead admitted firing the fatal shot to Crockett's body.
But Morehead's attorney, Jeff Rudd of Roanoke, told the eight-woman, four-man jury that physical evidence points to William Ray Smith Jr. as the trigger man in this case.
Smith maintains that Morehead fired both shots. Morehead says Smith was the trigger man and Zelenak says each man fired a shot. She also said she was forced to drive the car.
One shot passed under Crockett's scalp without penetrating the skull. The other shot was the lethal one. It will be up to the jury to decide if they believe the lethal shot was fired by Morehead.
Only the person who fired the lethal shot can be convicted of capital murder, Keith told the jury.
The jury also could convict Morehead of first-degree murder, which carries a maximum term of life, or acquit him.
Smith, 19, who is from Pulaski County, avoided a possible death sentence last month when he pleaded no contest to first-degree murder, abduction, robbery and use of a firearm in Crockett's death and to conspiracy to rob Arbuckle, attempted robbery and use of a firearm. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 70 years.
"I'll prove to you that Ray Smith is the one that killed her," Rudd told the jury.
Zelenak is expected to testify for the prosecution and Rudd plans to call Smith to the stand.
Bill Tolley, an investigator with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, played for the jury a taped interview with Morehead conducted the afternoon of June 2, the day Crockett's body was found.
"I'm not sure really what all went on," Morehead told Tolley in the interview. He denied shooting Crockett. He said Smith fired the shots in Crockett's car just as Morehead was getting out of Zelenak's car to go find out why Smith had forced Crockett to drive away from the bank and down Falling Branch Road.