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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 27, 1993                   TAG: 9304270249
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PULASKI MURDER TRIAL OPENS

King, 33, of Pulaski also faces a charge of malicious cutting of Jeffrey E. Duncan, 29, during the commission of a felony.

Duncan died May 15. He had been stabbed numerous times, but an autopsy showed death was from drowning.

King's attorneys, Mike Fleenor and Mark Hicks of Pulaski, intend to prove that although King may have stabbed Duncan with a box-cutting knife, he did not drown him or help another man - previously convicted in Duncan's death - drown him.

But Steve Plott and Doug Schroder, assistant commonwealth's attorneys, told the jury that even though another man actually drowned Duncan, King bore a degree of responsibility for the death and could be found guilty of first-degree murder.

Duncan's body was found partially submerged in the culvert of a small stream near Monroe Avenue and U.S. 11 - less than 100 yards from where King lived with Bobby Joe Thompson II - at about 1 a.m. on May 16. He had been stabbed and cut many times between his waist and his head, according to court testimony.

Thompson, 27, was sentenced to life in prison in February after a Pulaski County jury found him guilty of Duncan' s murder. The jury also fined Thompson $100,000.

Thompson was called as a defense witness Monday, but refused to answer questions by pleading the Fifth Amendment - on the grounds that the answers might incriminate him. His attorney, Robbie Jenkins of Radford, said Thompson has appealed his murder conviction.

Thompson previously told police he drowned Duncan to end his suffering from the stab wounds inflicted by King.

Duncan, a friend of Thompson and King, had come by the Monroe Avenue house to visit but he and Thompson began to argue and King volunteered to fight Duncan outside, according to testimony.

Maj. Jim Davis of the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office said King told him the two men had argued about Thompson's wife. King told Davis he remembered swinging the box-cutter at Duncan and may have cut him two or three times.

But Thompson came out of the house and cut Duncan some more, King has told Davis. The next thing King told Davis he remembered was standing beside Thompson as he held Duncan's head underwater.