
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994                   TAG: 9406010092
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

TOUGHER EXECUTION LAW ASKED

Relatives of a Norfolk woman who was murdered and dismembered last year took their plea for a tougher death-penalty law to Gov. George Allen on Tuesday.

The family of Judy Greer presented Allen more than 13,000 signatures on petitions urging that the death penalty be allowed for gruesome murders.

``I worked very hard for this,'' said a tearful Nhan Lisa Beecher, speaking softly. She said she also has written to the White House about her daughter's death.

While the petition calls for expansion of the death penalty, Allen and Attorney General Jim Gilmore said the case shows why parole should be abolished.

``What you've done is you've touched a nerve,'' Allen told Beecher, her husband, Charles, and their two sons, Tony and Sonny.

Prosecutors tried the case in federal court and got a life sentence without parole against Mark Christopher Poe. In state court, the maximum he could have received would have been life with parole after 12 to 15 years.

Prosecutors could not prove whether Greer had been raped, which would have allowed the death penalty under state law.

She was killed April 27, 1993, at her home in a Navy housing complex. Poe, her neighbor, left her head and arms in Virginia Beach and her torso in Suffolk.

``Why does it have to take a secondary crime to get the death penalty?'' asked Beecher's son Sonny. ``That's loathsome at best.''

Allen said he believed it would be constitutional to allow the death penalty for murders that involve mutilation. But he said legislators have defeated bills to expand the death penalty.

``They're slow learners,'' Allen said.

``They need to wake up, because it could be their families next,'' Sonny Beecher said.

Allen was less certain about abolishing bond for people accused of violent crimes.

When he killed Greer, Poe was free on bond on a charge that he raped a teen-age girl.

``You can't just say we're going to deny bond for everyone,'' Allen said. ``I think judges will exercise sounder discretion and judgment.''

He said the issue of tightening bond requirements could be addressed in September during a special General Assembly session on abolishing parole.

by CNB