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

DATE: THURSDAY, August 18, 1994                   TAG: 9408180096
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STUDENT'S KILLER DENIED PAROLE

Stephen Epperly, the first person in Virginia convicted of murder without a confession, a body or an eyewitness, has been denied parole from his life sentence for the 1980 murder of a Radford University student.

Gina Renee Hall, 18, disappeared in June 1980 after leaving a Blacksburg nightspot with a man. Evidence against Epperly included small amounts of blood and hair that matched Hall's and were found at the home of a friend of Epperly's on Claytor Lake in Pulaski County.

Epperly didn't testify at his trial, but in several interviews with the Roanoke Times & World-News, he has maintained he didn't kill Hall and consequently has no idea what happened to her body. He contends he was set up by police and prosecutors.

Epperly, who is being held in the Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Buchanan County, became eligible for parole before serving the 15 years prisoners sentenced to life usually serve, because of time accumulated for good behavior.

There was little chance, with Gov. George Allen's tough stance on parole, that Epperly would be granted parole on his first try.

John Metzger, Parole Board chairman, said the decision to deny parole came last Thursday after three members of the five-member board cast "no" votes. The reason listed for denial was the serious nature and circumstance of the offense, a standard reason given in many parole denials involving murder.

Epperly will not be considered for parole again for three years under a state law that allows the Parole Board to defer annual hearings for those serving a life sentence or who have at least 10 years remaining on their sentence.

Epperly's appeals received national attention when he challenged the expert testimony of a dog handler who claimed his dog tracked Epperly's trail from Hall's abandoned car to Epperly's home in Radford eight days after the crime. The dog handler later conceded that his dog may have been tracking a police officer instead of Epperly.

John Hall, Gina Hall's father, was notified by the Parole Board of the denial and the three-year deferment decision Friday morning .

"Thank goodness," he said from his Coeburn insurance office.

by CNB