Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9306010189
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Paul Dellinger Southwest Bureau
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
So did his family, as well as the families of the two people he was charged with killing.
The seven women and five men on the jruy began deliberating at 9 a.m. Saturday and were still doing so Saturday evening.
Thomas Jefferson Midkiff's trial concluded Friday after five days. It took up the first day and a half seating a jury of members who had not already made up their minds about the case, which generated much publicity in Carroll County.
Midkiff had confessed to the stabbing deaths of 30-year-old Sheila Marie Ring and her 2-year-old daughter, Jasmine Sutphin, whose bodies were found in the ashes of their home Dec. 3, 1991, near Woodlawn.
He repudiated that confession from the witness stand Friday, claiming that he broke down after hours of relentless questioning by authorities and told them what he thought they wanted to hear.
Midkiff was charged with first-degree murder in Ring's death, and captial murder in the death of her daughter as part of the same offense. He was also charged with arson.
In his confession when he was questioned a few days after the killings, he said he and Ring were having an affair and he "lost it" and killed her with a knife from her kitchen when she threatened to tell his wife. He killed her daughter when she came running into the room, he said at the time.
The defense pointed out incorect details about the crimes in Midkiff's statement as indications that he did not really know what happened. The prosecution emphasized details in it that the killer would have known.
Midkiff testified that he got some of the correct details in conversation with Sheriff R. D. Carrico, to whom he ended up confessing, and guessed at the rest. Carrico denied providing those details.
by CNB