Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 23, 1993 TAG: 9309230160
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN AND MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Dr. David Oxley, the deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia, said he has no reason to believe the body is not Phadra Carter, a kidnapped 11-year-old Rockbridge County girl.
Oxley said the tall, slender body of the girl he examined Wednesday afternoon matched the description of Phadra.
Botetourt County authorities are poised today to file capital murder charges against William R. Layne, Phadra's accused abductor.
"It's a despicable crime," Sheriff Reed Kelly said. "I don't know of any worse."
Kelly declined comment on a motive. Phadra had told friends that Layne tried to molest her during a Labor Day weekend visit to her parents. Layne is the brother of Phadra's stepfather.
Oxley declined comment on whether the girl was molested.
Authorities can file a capital murder charge against Layne based on an allegation that he killed the girl during the commission of an abduction.
He could face the death penalty if convicted. He was arraigned Wednesday in Rockbridge County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on the abduction charge and was given a court-appointed attorney, Bill Bobbitt of Staunton.
The body was discovered during the third day of a search that centered on the White Church section of the county.
On Monday, authorities found what they believe is the girl's underwear, blood and a weapon about a quarter of a mile from where her body was found. The grave site is about a mile from the home of another brother of Layne's. Layne had recently stayed at that home.
Wednesday, Kelly had mapped out 11 search sites in the vicinity of Virginia 666, 667 and 668. Search teams included about 40 VMI cadets and about half the Vinton Police Department, including Chief Rick Foutz.
Searchers worked for about 2 1/2 hours Wednesday before the body was discovered shortly before noon by Dave Hall, a Botetourt County man who volunteered his help. It was in a shallow grave just over the lip of a knoll in a wooded area off Virginia 666.
Commonwealth's attorneys Rob Hagan of Botetourt County and Eric Sisler of Rockbridge County visited the grave site while officers were working there. Rockbridge County Sheriff Robert Day also came to the scene.
Phadra's mother declined to talk to reporters afterward.
On Wednesday, friends and neighbors in Arnolds Valley were filled with concern and bittersweet recollections.
Until just a few days ago, Phadra Carter was the little girl with the long brown hair pulled back with barrettes who tooled around Johnson's Trailer Park on her bike.
"She was such a sweet little old girl," said Loraine Campbell, who sold Phadra fries and sodas at Loopes Restaurant, a pizza-and-burger place near the trailer park.
Clarence Campbell and his wife saw Phadra and her bicycling pals playing out on Virginia 799 every day, as the Campbells stood at their kitchen sink. It was a scene they took for granted.
"You see them from day to day out there," Campbell said. "Then the reality hits you - it's not going to be there anymore."
The abduction and murder of a child is unheard of in Arnolds Valley, a rural area near Natural Bridge, he said. "This doesn't happen here . . . never a child, taken like this and abused."
Campbell said he spoke for many there when he said of Billy Layne, Phadra's accused abductor: "We don't think that this guy has any rights. He needs to die now, not three or four years down the road. If he was here right now, I'd blow his head off."
Timothy Byers, who lived near the Carter family, left his trailer at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday. He hoped that by the time he got home from a day of driving his tractor-trailer, he'd hear some good news.
Instead, he was faced with trying to explain Phadra's death to his 9-year-old daughter, Shawna. Shawna's birthday party on Sunday was the first one Phadra missed.
"Well," he said Wednesday night, "my little girl is taking it pretty rough. She doesn't understand. It ain't but so much you can tell her, because you don't want to scare her."
He never would let Shawna ride her bike out on the highway with the other kids, and he and his wife try to keep an eye on her.
"And now," he said of Shawna, "she understands why."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB