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

DATE: SATURDAY, July 2, 1994                   TAG: 9407040107
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

5 YEARS IN PRISON FOR ARSON|

Carter M. Clay told a judge Friday he had no excuse for setting fire to his former girlfriend's house after breaking into it last October and that he deserved to serve time for it.

"The thing I did was terrible and I deserve to pay for it," Clay said. Montgomery Circuit Judge Ray Grubbs agreed, sentencing Clay, 42, to serve five years of a 10-year prison sentence.

Clay, of Pittsylvania County, had pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year. He has been held in the Montgomery County Jail since his arrest .

He testified Friday that he had been drinking heavily when he showed up at the house of his former fiance Oct. 4, 1993. He became upset later when she did not meet him as promised at a nearby motel.

Wendy Atkinson went to the police station instead, and within minutes, fire crews were called to her home in the 700 block of Lawn Drive in Christiansburg.

Clay, a pipe welder from Hurt, Va., testified he had a five-gallon gas can in his truck because of fuel gauge problems and not because he planned to burn the home.

"I had not planned anything prior to this. That is the God's honest truth. I just lost it," Clay testified.

Clay said he was upset that the relationship had ended with the woman and because he believed she had started seeing someone else.

Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith pushed for Clay to be given prison time, even though sentencing guidelines did not call for any. Keith said Clay had developed a fixation on Atkinson that he probably had not totally shaken.

Joey Showalter, Clay's attorney, suggested that the arson was an aberration in Clay's long history as a hard-working, church-going man.

"He was drunk and he was jealous of the fact that she had a new boyfriend," Showalter told Grubbs.

Grubbs imposed a one-year prison sentence on the breaking and entering charge and a 10-year sentence for arson. After serving five years, Clay will be released from prison and put on probation with conditions that include staying away from Atkinson, receiving alcohol treatment and making $112,000 restitution to Atkinson and her insurance company .

Since being jailed, Clay has deeded his home in Pittsylvania County to his mother.

Grubbs said that he would consider lessening the amount of time Clay has to serve if Clay makes arrangements within three weeks to have that home deeded to Atkinson as part of the restitution.

by CNB