Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 24, 1993 TAG: 9306240309
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Mike Crockett, Lorna Crockett's widower, said Wednesday that the settlement is subject to the approval of the deputy commissioner for state worker's compensation who heard arguments in the case last month.
Mike Crockett was denied a claim for nearly $80,000 earlier this year when the insurance carrier, Pennsylvania National Insurance Cos., ruled that her death was not covered because it "did not arise out of and in the course of Ms. Crockett's employment."
But Mike Gray, Crockett's attorney, said the death was covered because Lorna Crockett was at the bank branch at Hills Plaza solely to make a deposit for the store.
Mike Crockett, who works as an independent subcontractor with the U.S. Postal Service, said last month that he has pursued the compensation matter for the couple's three sons, not for personal monetary gain.
"That's all she was working for was the boys," he said.
On June 1, 1992, Lorna Raines Crockett wished her boys good luck at their baseball games and gave them all the change she had so they could buy sodas.
She donned one of her sons' baseball cap, left Pulaski County and headed down the interstate to Shoe Show in Christiansburg, a store she had managed for about two weeks.
It was the last time her family saw her alive.
Katina L. Zelenak, one of three people charged in Crockett's death, testified at the claims hearing last month that "it was my understanding they [the two other defendants charged with Crockett's death] shot her because she had saw who they were."
The only reason Crockett became a target that night was "because of the night deposit," Zelenak said.
Zelenak, 21, who has been sentenced to life plus two years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder, testified that she, Paul William Morehead and William Ray Smith Jr. were at the Hills Plaza on Roanoke Street in Christiansburg to case the Hills Department Store bank deposit - not to commit a robbery that night.
Morehead, 21, is still awaiting trial. His April capital murder trial ended in a mistrial when Zelenak referred to two robbery charges the pair faces in Pulaski County.
Smith, 19, pleaded no contest to first-degree murder, abduction, robbery and use of a firearm. He also was found guilty of conspiring to rob Stuart Arbuckle - the Domino's Pizza manager who led police to the three Crockett murder suspects when he almost was held up at a Blacksburg bank. Smith was sentenced to life in prison plus 70 years.
Zelenak, who received 14 years in prison after a jury found her guilty in the Arbuckle robbery, has testified in previous court hearings that Hills was ruled too risky when the three saw that two employees made the bank deposit.
Zelenak told Shoe Show's attorney, William Walker of Norfolk, that she did not know Crockett and neither Morehead nor Smith appeared to recognize her or realize that she was the Shoe Show manager.
by CNB