Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 22, 1993 TAG: 9309220216
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP and MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They're floored by his latest and most serious criminal charge - that he abducted his 11-year-old stepniece from her bed in a Rockbridge County trailer. Phadra Dannielle Carter is the stepdaughter of his younger brother, Marty Keith Layne.
When the warden of the Bland Correctional Center, Patti Leigh Huffman, heard that Layne was arrested in Phadra Dannielle Carter's disappearance, she and her staff were stunned.
"The reaction has been: `Is that the same William Layne we had?' It is just so hard to believe."
To prison officials, it seemed Layne was working hard to put his troubled past behind him.
Layne, 40, grew up in the Flatwoods section of Botetourt County, a remote area around Switzer Mountain.
His relatives call him "Bib." Years ago, a young child couldn't say "Billy," so Layne became "Bibby," then "Bib" for short.
The family has had its share of turmoil. According to one probation officer's report, Layne's father had "a long history of problems with alcohol abuse."
Billy Layne and a brother, Marty Layne, have serious criminal records. A sister, Margaret S. Layne, served six months in jail in the mid-1980s for joining in a bank robbery in Daleville.
Billy Layne was convicted of a string of burglaries and larcenies in 1977 and was given probation.
But his probation officer wrote that his "adjustment to probation was very poor from the very first day." He was convicted of concealing merchandise at a Roanoke store and his wife accused him of beating her, according to court records.
He missed appointments with his probation officer before disappearing for a year. His probation was revoked and he was sentenced to one year in prison.
Layne disappeared again in 1982 after he was convicted of three petty crimes. When police caught up to him in 1984, he was charged with a string of burglaries across Botetourt.
He was convicted in one case after his brother Marty - who joined in some of the break-ins - cut a deal with prosecutors and testified against him. Billy Layne eventually pleaded guilty to more than 20 felonies and found himself facing a total of 51 years in prison.
He seemed to start turning things around.
Bland warden Huffman said he tried to improve on his eighth-grade education. He took all kinds of classes - electronics, small-engine repair, building trades, commercial food preparation.
He went through therapy with a counselor.
"Mr. Layne never had an institutional charge the whole time he was locked up," Huffman said. "He was honest, he was straightforward. . . . He pulled his time well."
Layne moved from maximum to medium to minimum security. He won the right to work on Bland's fence-repair gang, and earned lots of "good time" credit to speed his release.
He was paroled in December, after serving less than nine years of his sentence.
Philip Obrist, owner of a Botetourt County home improvement company, hired Layne as a laborer last winter. They worked side by side.
Things seemed to change this summer around the time Layne split up with his wife, Obrist said. Layne was coming to work late or not at all. He told Obrist he drank a case of beer some weekends.
Obrist began to notice inconsistencies in Layne's oft-repeated tales. "It got so I couldn't trust him."
He couldn't find Layne for a while; about five weeks ago Obrist sent him a note that he'd hired somebody to take his place.
Despite his problems, Layne's family can't believe that he'd do what authorities have accused him of doing.
"He's had a hell of a life," but he's never been accused of anything this bad, said his half-sister, Joanie Tolley.
Now - a niece lost and a brother behind bars - the family has been hit with a double calamity. "It's bad enough [with] somebody in your family being abducted," Tolley said. "Then you've got somebody in your family being accused."
by CNB