Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 28, 1993 TAG: 9304280375
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
A Pulaski County Circuit Court jury deliberated about 45 minutes before returning its verdict. The jury set the maximum sentence of 20 years, but sentencing was delayed until Judge Dow Owens reviews briefs from the lawyers. The defense moved to set the verdict aside.
King, 33, of Pulaski, also was found guilty of maliciously cutting Jeffrey Eugene Duncan, 29, and set a five-year sentence.
The second-degree murder conviction was less than prosecutors had sought. Steve Plott and Doug Schroder, assistant commonwealth's attorneys, had asked the jury to find King guilty of first-degree murder.
The prosecutors argued that King acted in concert with his housemate, Bobby Joe Thompson II, to carry out a fight against Duncan and then stood by and watched as Thompson held Duncan's head under water until he died.
Thompson was found guilty of first-degree murder in February, and a jury fixed his punishment at life in prison and a $100,000 fine. He has appealed.
Duncan died May 15. He had been stabbed many times, but an autopsy showed death was from drowning.
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 Thompson - 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, previously told police he drowned Duncan to end his suffering from the stab wounds inflicted by King.
King testified Tuesday that he had been drinking heavily and taken illegal drugs the day of Duncan's death. He testified that he may have struck Duncan a few times with a box-cutting knife but stopped fighting with the man and fell down at his porch.
It was Thompson, King testified, who came out of the house, continued to fight and stab Duncan, and then drowned him.
Mike Fleenor and Mark Hicks, King's lawyers, argued that their client was guilty only of fighting and could not be held responsible for Thompson's decision to take the fight to killing.
But Plott told Owens that King "began a deadly duel with an unarmed man."
King started the fight, Plott said; stood by while Thompson drowned Duncan; then helped drag the body to the culvert.
by CNB