Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 12, 1994 TAG: 9403120106
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO DON
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Long
Dudding and other Botetourt County deputies found the evidence that eventually would convict Phadra's killer: drag marks, hair, blood, a tire iron. They didn't find her body, but they knew there was little hope she was still alive.
Dudding had on a suit and patent-leather shoes for a court hearing he hadn't made it to. About 5:30 p.m., he drove home to change before rejoining the search.
His 7-year-old daughter, Meredith, met him with a hug. "Daddy, you're home. Where you been?"
Inside, he began telling his wife, Lisa, but he had to stop. After focusing all day on doing his job, it finally hit him: A little girl had died, in the most brutal way.
Lisa Dudding left the room and closed the door behind her.
"That's when I shed my tears for Phadra," Sgt. Dudding says. "Then I got dressed and recomposed myself."
He had a job ahead of him. He went out and kissed his wife and little girl goodbye.
"We've got to find her," he said.
"When are you coming back?" his wife asked.
"I don't know - we've got to find her," he said.
Two days later, searchers discovered Phadra's body buried under loose dirt and brush not far from the murder scene. Dudding and other deputies dug her out of the grave with their hands.
Dudding, 35, became the lead investigator in one of the most horrifying murder cases in Virginia history. He and a team of Botetourt deputies put together a complex circumstantial case that convicted Phadra's step-uncle, Billy Layne, and sent him to prison on a life sentence.
Dudding and the other officers are quick to say that nobody went through more hell than Phadra's family. But the case took a toll, too, on the officers who lived with it for almost six months.
"You see an 11-year-old done the way she was, you wonder, `What in the hell am I doing?' " Dudding says. "I don't think anybody realizes what we go through. . . . I'm not trying to make us sound like a bunch of soft-hearts. But we're human."
They had to deal with both the horror of the murder and with the pressure to make sure the killer didn't get away.
There was no eyewitness or one piece of evidence that proved Layne did the crime. Investigators made their case by carefully putting together hundreds of bits of evidence, such as tire tracks, blood tests, DNA analyses.
"You don't get but one chance to collect the evidence and put it together right," Botetourt Sheriff Reed Kelly said. "From Day One, our motto was: No mistakes. Because this little girl deserved our best effort."
It was a strain on a department that has a total of two dozen investigators and road officers, in a quiet county that usually has few murders.
Phadra Carter's killing was the only murder in Botetourt in 1993.
They dug her body out of a 31-inch-long grave. Her legs had been chopped so they could be folded to fit into the hole.
"People that never smoked a cigarette in their life were saying, `Give me a cigarette,' " Dudding says.
Dudding felt sadness, horror, anger. Mostly, he felt relief. "We were relieved that the family wouldn't have to wonder - and they could give her a decent burial."
For the next 5 1/2 months, Dudding worked full time on the case - more than full time. Other deputies - including Beth Musselwhite, Johnny Mandeville and Nelson Tolley - also worked countless hours. Nobody put in for overtime, Dudding said.
Botetourt County investigators got help from the Rockbridge County Sheriff's Office, other local law enforcement agencies and state lab experts. They compiled thousands of pages of documents and reports and interviewed more than 75 people.
When the trial came, Botetourt deputies drove three carloads of evidence to Winchester. The case had been moved there to help make sure Layne got a fair hearing.
Even as the evidence piled up inside the courtroom, Billy Layne's family claimed the case was a "setup" - that the Sheriff's Office had framed him.
Still, Dudding made it a point to say hello every day to Margaret Layne, Billy's 69-year-old mother.
"She is just as good a woman as you'll ever find," he says. "To a certain extent, I can understand what they're going through. . . . They're hurt and angry, and they need some way to vent it.
"In this job, you're used to being people's release. We're in the middle. You have to learn to live with that - or get the hell out."
Dudding testified for three hours. He says Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Hagan did a great job of presenting the case in court.
Dudding knew all the evidence - but hearing Hagan sum it all up at the end had a jarring impact. "My throat got tight. My eyes were getting kind of woozy-like."
When Phadra's mother, Cindy Layne, left the courtroom crying, Dudding went out to comfort her.
The jury convicted Billy Layne of capital murder.
Later, during the sentencing, Dudding served as a court security officer. He stood four feet away as Layne testified that he couldn't remember what happened the day Phadra was molested and murdered.
Dudding believed Layne was lying, but "I tried not to feel anything. I was watching his eyes and his hands. My job was to protect him and to protect the judge. That's all."
Dudding and other sheriff's officers were disappointed when the jury came back with a life sentence. If anyone deserved the death penalty, he said, Layne did.
But, he said, "what the jury decides is out of our control, and we can't worry about it."
Now Dudding will go on to other cases - but probably never one as gut-wrenching as this one.
"You'll move on - but you won't forget."
by CNB