Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 10, 1993 TAG: 9311100200
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Long
During four days of questioning, Sheriff Reed Kelly says, Billy Layne never admitted that he kidnapped and murdered Phadra Carter.
At the same time, the sheriff says, Layne steadfastly refused to proclaim his innocence.
Over and over, Kelly says, he urged Layne, "Tell me that you didn't do it."
And Layne would respond: "I can't do that. I don't remember what happened. . . . I can't believe I'm the kind of person who would do something like that."
But Kelly says that when he asked Layne if his brother Ronnie was involved, Layne said, "I was by myself. Ronnie didn't have anything to do with it."
Kelly - who never really suspected Ronnie Layne - says he pressed Billy Layne: If he couldn't remember anything, how could he know his brother was not involved?
Layne returned to his refrain that he couldn't remember, Kelly says.
The sheriff says Layne maintained that he had blacked out for two days and may have "just snapped."
On Tuesday, 18 witnesses testified for five hours at Layne's preliminary hearing in Botetourt County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. They included investigators who say they found blood stains in the cargo section of Layne's Toyota wagon.
At the end, Judge Dudley Emick sent the case to a grand jury. If the grand jury indicts Layne on the capital murder charges, the case then will go to trial.
Authorities claim that Billy Layne kidnapped Phadra from her home in Rockbridge County early on Sept. 18 with the intention of sexually abusing her.
Her body was found in a shallow grave in Botetourt County four days later. She had been killed by 10 blows to the head. Her legs had been chopped and bent to fit them in the grave, an investigator testified.
Tuesday's hearing began with emotional testimony from Phadra's mother, Cindy Layne, who lived with Phadra in a mobile-home park near Natural Bridge.
She testified that Billy Layne, 40, had shown an unusual interest in Phadra when he had visited their home over Memorial Day, a couple of weeks before the kidnapping.
Cindy Layne also testified that her brother-in-law had told her a chilling story he had heard when he was in prison for burglary: A man had kidnapped a young girl and held her hostage in the woods and forced sex on her. She says Billy Layne told her that if you could keep such a girl long enough to have a baby, she would forgive you.
The night of Friday, Sept. 17, Phadra went to a wedding rehearsal for her father, who was getting married the next day. She was to be a flower girl.
After she got home, Phadra and her mother played records and danced until Phadra was exhausted. About 10:45 p.m., Layne says, she dressed Phadra for bed in a long T-shirt, tucked her in on the living-room sofa and kissed her good night.
Layne says she awoke about 2 a.m. - groggy from muscle relaxers and painkillers - and heard Phadra say, "No," and then scream, again and again.
Layne ran out of her bedroom and found Phadra was gone from the trailer. The front door was ajar, Layne says.
A neighbor testified that she saw Phadra being pulled down the road by a lanky man who was hissing at her to be quiet. Layne and the neighbor say the man sped away in a compact car.
At first, Layne thought some teen-age boys had taken Phadra.
Later, she mentioned to a Rockbridge deputy that the car resembled one that belonged to her brother-in-law, Billy Layne. But she didn't push it, because "you don't want to believe somebody in your family would do that."
The next day, with Phadra still missing, Rockbridge authorities issued a kidnapping warrant against Layne.
Early the following Monday, a Botetourt County resident called Sheriff's Sgt. D.A. Dudding and told him he should search a dirt road that ran off Virginia 667 in Botetourt's Flatwoods section. Dudding says the caller said Billy Layne - who lived in the area with his brother, Ronnie - had been seen on the dirt road from time to time. "She was concerned that the little girl might be out there."
Dudding and another deputy searched the dirt road and found what they believed to be "drag marks." Along that path, Dudding testified, they found pools of blood, a girl's underwear, an empty condom wrapper and a tire iron.
They found no body. They surmised that she had been killed at the dirt road and then her body had been carried elsewhere.
Sheriff Kelly testified that during his questioning of Layne, he repeatedly asked him where Phadra's body was. Layne did not answer, Kelly says.
But when Kelly mentioned places around Virginia 667 where the body might be, Layne "started to shake."
On Wednesday, Sept. 22, searchers found the gravesite, less than half a mile from the home of Billy Layne's mother.
Phadra's arms had been bound to her side by yellow rope. A blue men's T-shirt was bunched around her neck.
On a path near the grave, Dudding says, he found a shovel and a mattock. They had mud on them, but they appeared to be new, Dudding says. They still had price tags from a Roanoke hardware store.
Jeff Kingery, a manager at the store, testified that on Saturday, Sept. 18, he sold a shovel and a mattock to a "stringy, greasy-haired" man.
Kingery says he tried to make small talk with the man - "I always small talk with my customers" - but the man didn't want to dawdle. He paid with two $20 bills, got his change and left. "It was just: `I need it, I'm gone.' "
Kingery testified that he was certain - "beyond a shadow of a doubt" - that he had waited on Layne in the store within a few days of Phadra Carter's killing.
Kingery said he was "90 percent" certain Layne was the customer who had bought the digging tools that Saturday. "I feel like I did sell him the shovel and the mattock. That's the best I can say."
Crime-scene investigators, meanwhile, turned up other evidence they believe links Layne to the killing:
A fingerprint expert testified that he found Phadra's thumbprints on the front passenger window of Layne's car.
Another crime expert testified that a tire track taken from the dirt road matched the type of tires that were on Layne's car.
A blood specialist said tests show there was human blood in the cargo section of Layne's car. She said a DNA test probably will be done later to determine whether it was Phadra's blood.
More tests are being conducted, and defense attorney Pete Robey concedes there is much incriminating evidence against his client. But Robey suggests there isn't enough to prove the sexual intent needed to sustain a capital murder charge against Layne.
If the charges against Layne were reduced to first-degree murder or some other lesser homicide charge, he would avoid any chance of getting the death penalty.
Sheriff Kelly testified that during questioning, Layne told him, "I want to tell you the truth, but I'm afraid."
Kelly says Layne avowed he was not afraid of any punishment - just the pain that would be brought on his family.
Even as the evidence piled up, Kelly says, Layne would not say much beyond, "I don't remember."
What if, the sheriff asked him, lab experts were to find traces of Layne's hair, blood, or other body fluids on the girl's body?
Kelly says Layne dropped his head and said: "I pray to God that you don't."
by CNB