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

DATE: MONDAY, August 23, 1993                   TAG: 9308230073
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CONVICTED CYCLIST SLAYER GRANTED STAY

A Northern Virginia man convicted of raping and murdering a woman on an Arlington bicycle trail in 1990 has been granted a stay of execution.

Michael C. Satcher was to die Tuesday in the electric chair at Greensville Correctional Center. The Arlington Circuit Court last week vacated the execution date and appointed a lawyer to pursue his case.

Mark S. Thrash is to handle Satcher's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and will try to find a legal reason Satcher should be granted a retrial.

Satcher, a furniture warehouse worker, was sentenced to death in December 1991 for the slaying of Anne Elizabeth Borghesani, a paralegal who was attacked near the Martha Custis Bicycle Trail. She was on her way to her 23rd birthday party when she was robbed, beaten, raped and stabbed 21 times before being dumped in a stairwell.

The Virginia Supreme Court upheld Satcher's death sentence in September 1992.

Satcher has been returned to the Mecklenburg Correctional Center from Greensville, where death-row inmates are held before their execution.

by CNB