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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994                   TAG: 9406010093
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SLAYER GETS 20-YEAR SENTENCE, BLAMES DRUGS FOR FUELING FIGHT

Shortly after Steven T. Johnson was found stabbed to death in a Northwest Roanoke apartment, Patterson told police that his memory of what happened was clouded by the 30 or so rocks of crack he had smoked.

But in testimony Tuesday in Roanoke Circuit Court, Patterson, 28, blamed cocaine in a different way - saying it led him to kill Johnson in self-defense.

"All I was thinking about was self-preservation," when a "crazed-out" Johnson attacked him with a knife during a night of partying, Patterson testified.

"I could see when I looked in his eyes that there was no stopping him," Patterson said, testifying that he turned the knife on Johnson during a struggle on the floor.

Patterson, a convicted bank robber, had been free on parole for less than a year when Johnson, 30, was killed last Oct. 19 at Patterson's Westside Boulevard apartment.

His testimony Tuesday provided the first clear motive in a killing that authorities had been unable to explain, given that Patterson and Johnson were friends from high school and had not been arguing before the incident.

But Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Dennis Nagel called Patterson's self-defense story "merely an attempt to whitewash what was a deliberate act."

The fact that Johnson was using drugs should not cheapen his life, Nagel told Judge Clifford Weckstein.

"But on the flip side, we don't reward people when they load up on crack, beer and wine and then go out and kill someone," he said.

At an earlier trial, Patterson was convicted of second-degree murder. His sentencing was the first in Roanoke since the punishment for that crime was increased from a maximum of 20 years to 40 years in prison.

Defense attorney Tony Anderson had asked that Patterson receive no more than 15 years, a term recommended by nonbinding sentencing guidelines.

Patterson said he first told police that he did not remember what happened the night of the killing only because he didn't want to make a statement without first talking to a lawyer.

"If I had known those three words - I don't remember - would get me a second-degree murder conviction, I never would have said it," Patterson testified.

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