Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 11, 1993 TAG: 9311110082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The charge against Eric Lee Patterson will now go to a grand jury that meets in December.
Patterson, 28, is accused of killing 30-year-old Steven Theodore Johnson at a Westside Boulevard apartment the night of Oct. 18.
No motive for the killing emerged from testimony during a preliminary hearing in Roanoke General District Court.
David Harrington, the only witness called, testified that he, Johnson and Patterson all knew each other and had gathered at the apartment.
Johnson and Patterson had not been arguing prior to the stabbing, he testified.
Harrington said he was taking a shower when he heard noise coming from the living room. He then saw Patterson, with a knife in his hand, on top of Johnson's prone body.
"I told him he was going to jail," Harrington testified.
Patterson blocked his exit from the apartment, then ripped the telephone from its outlet when he tried to call for help, Harrington testified.
After escaping the apartment, Harrington - wearing only a towel - knocked on doors of adjacent apartments and asked residents to call police.
When police arrived, they found Johnson dead from a stab wound to his chest. Patterson had fled the scene but turned himself in the following morning.
Patterson, a convicted bank robber who was paroled from prison less than a year ago, is being held in the Roanoke City Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond.
Keywords:
ROMUR
by CNB