Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 26, 1993 TAG: 9305260272
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Midkiff, 28, went on trial Tuesday following more than a day of questioning of prospective jurors to secure a 12-member jury and two alternates.
He is charged with capital murder and first-degree murder in the stabbings of Sheila Marie Ring and her daughter, Jasmine Celene Sutphin, on December 3, 1991, and with arson in the burning of their home near Woodlawn.
"He's admitted to these crimes and he's also admitted to setting the house on fire," Commonwealth's Attorney Greg Goad told the jury Tuesday afternoon. "Ladies and gentlemen, that will be my case."
"It's a false confession," responded defense attorney Jonathan Venzie.
Venzie said Carroll County authorities took Midkiff to state police division headquarters in Wytheville and questioned him for hours, "and he broke."
Goad said the jury will hear Midkiff's taped confession.
"You will hear the questioning and the techniques that they used in that questioning . . . the questions, the false offers of help," Venzie said. "Picture yourself or anyone else in that kind of circumstance."
He said the only evidence in the case, besides the confession, is a hair fragment recovered from the fire that does not match either of the victims or the defendant.
Venzie also said Midkiff's confession does not fit the facts.
"He had to guess. He got it wrong. . . . Real important stuff, like where the fire started," Venzie said.
The first prosecution witnesses Tuesday included RhudyLineberry, Ring's landlord, who said he saw Midkiff on her porch at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 3, 1991.
Lineberry said he was driving by in his pickup truck when he saw Ring talking to Midkiff from her partly opened front door, then saw Midkiff get in his car and leave.
Another witness testified that he spotted the house on fire shortly after 7:30 p.m.
Firefighters saw Ring's body through a window and cut a hole in one wall to get the bodies out before the fire consumed them.
Goad said the prosecution's case would take several days. He said Ring died from a stab wound to the back but had other wounds. Her daughter's throat had been cut.
Both sides spent all day Monday questioning potential jurors, and had thought they had a panel of 24 qualified jurors from which to choose their 14.
But one of the 24 called in sick Tuesday morning. Proceedings had to be delayed until the court could qualify another panel.
A panel of seven was brought in. Two of its members were quickly excused because they knew some of the people in the case. The others were found to be qualified, and the first person on the list replaced the ill juror.
But Circuit Judge Duane Mink was taking no chances. "Just so we won't have any problem, don't release any of the other four until I tell you to," he ordered.
by CNB