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

DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993                   TAG: 9305290279
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

KILLER SEEKS NEW TRIAL CLAIMS CRIME-SCENE INVESTIGATOR WAS DRUNK

A Bedford County man convicted of second-degree murder two years ago asked for a new trial Friday, claiming that a sheriff's investigator was intoxicated when he collected evidence at the crime scene.

An attorney for Beattie Ervin Coe contends that sheriff's Lt. Steve Rush had been drinking when he responded to the shooting scene on the night of June 1, 1990.

In motion filed in Bedford Circuit Court, attorney Terry Grimes argues that Coe deserves a new trial because Rush may have overlooked critical evidence.

Rush referred all questions to Lynchburg lawyer Joseph Sanzone, who could not be reached for comment Friday.

Sheriff Carl Wells said the allegations were baseless.

"I was there that night and observed nothing whatsoever to indicate anything abnormal in his [Rush's] behavior," Wells said.

Coe, a railroad employee, claimed he was acting in self-defense when he shot Clayton Jahue Fore, 49, on a gravel road near his Jordantown home.

But a Bedford jury that heard the case in April 1991 did not believe Coe's story that he fired one shot only after Fore, drunk and violent, threatened to kill him.

The jury found Coe guilty of second-degree murder and set his sentence at 17 years in prison.

The physical evidence at the crime scene did not play an important role in the three-day trial. The case came down to the testimony of the two people - Coe and the victim's cousin, who had witnessed the shooting.

by CNB