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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 22, 1993                   TAG: 9309220209
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN AND MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: NATURAL BRIDGE STATION                                LENGTH: Medium

SUSPECT HAD TRIED TO MOLEST HER EARLIER, ACCORDING TO FRIENDS

Phadra Carter told other children that William R. "Billy" Layne crawled into her bed during a Labor Day weekend visit to her parents' mobile home and tried to fondle her.

Layne, the brother of Phadra's stepfather, left her room after she resisted him, the girl's mother said.

Layne, 40, has been charged with kidnapping Phadra. He was arrested Monday as he headed south on Interstate 81 in Smyth County.

Police were not discussing possible motives for the disappearance of Phadra, who was taken from her home in Johnson's Trailer Park around 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

Relatives said police, searching woods in Botetourt County north of Fincastle, have found what they believe are the girl's panties, blood and a weapon.

"There was evidence that an assault occurred. We feel confident that she was assaulted here," said Botetourt County Sheriff Reed Kelly, who was leading the search.

"We have our theory about what happened. The lab reports have done nothing to discourage or dissuade us from them."

Kelly said he has talked to Layne, but the sheriff would not say what statements Layne has made to him or other investigators.

Cindy Layne, Phadra's mother, gave blood Tuesday at Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington for comparison with blood found in the woods.

A DNA analysis can match the common genetic traits that the blood of a parent and child share.

Cindy Layne said she was asleep Saturday when she heard her daughter talking to someone in the living room of her Arnold Valley mobile home. Layne's husband was out of town on his job.

As the mother faded in and out of sleep, she thought she heard the girl say, "No!" Then she heard a scream.

The mother, still groggy from the effects of muscle relaxers she was taking for back and jaw pain, rushed to the living room. She found no one.

The living room window had been boosted open and the front door - locked when she went to bed - was open. A scatter rug kept the screen door ajar. Phadra's bedspread was on the front steps.

Some cinder blocks had been set under the window - as if someone used them to crawl inside through the open window.

Cindy Layne went outside, screaming: "Phadra! Answer me, Phadra!"

When she ran to the road, she saw a tall, lanky shadow disappearing in a pitch-black open field.

At first, Cindy Layne thought her daughter had been taken by a couple of teen-age boys who had been calling their house.

"I knew they were going to take her into the woods and rape her," she said.

The commotion caught the attention of Eileen Sargent, a neighbor who was awake in her bedroom when she heard Cindy Layne yell.

Sargent looked out of her house and saw a man pulling a child by the arm.

" `Be quiet and come along,' " the man told the child in a frantic voice after the mother screamed.

"This girl was not going along willingly," Sargent said.

Then Cindy Layne ran up the road toward where the man had gone, as did Sargent, but the man and the child had disappeared.

Then the women heard an engine start and a light-colored car with its lights out roared down the road close to Cindy Layne.

"I bet it was going 70 miles an hour when it came by her," Sargeant said. "It was a loud car."

It was loud enough to catch the attention of Lisa and Robbie Falls, who had seen the car pull into the driveway next to the Layne trailer twice about two hours before Phadra was abducted.

"It sounded like a Volkswagen," Lisa Falls said. "It was going real slow."

Robbie Falls said he could see the silhouette of a slim man with shoulder-length hair sitting behind the wheel.

The car matched the Falls' children's description of a vehicle driven by a visitor to the Layne home over the Labor Day weekend.

The youngsters remember Phadra running up to the car, stopping the driver and asking him if she could drive.

He allowed her to drive from the main road into the parking lot by her trailer, the children said.

Cindy Layne said she had no inkling of ill feelings between Phadra and Billy Layne until after her disappearance, when neighborhood children told her of Phadra's accusations of a molestation attempt.

Layne had warned her daughter to tell her if she was ever sexually abused.