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

DATE: SATURDAY, October 15, 1994                   TAG: 9411010006
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

TEEN SENTENCED TO 78 YEARS IN MURDER, ROBBERY OF CLERK

Ricky Coles, 17, dabbed at his eyes with a tissue at his sentencing hearing Thursday and said he was sorry for the April murder of 7-Eleven clerk Robert Morris.

``His life is gone, no matter how sorry you are,'' Judge Samuel T. Powell told Coles, who would be on supervised probation for life if he were ever released on parole.

Coles was previously charged as a juvenile with assault, destruction of property, shoplifting, reckless driving, burglary and grand larceny, Powell said.

``Each time, it escalates. And finally you come to this court charged with first-degree murder,'' the judge said. ``The people of the commonwealth needed to be protected from you.''

Coles, who pleaded guilty in August, and his younger brother, then 13, went into the convenience store early on April 2 and demanded money. Morris complied, even offering them the keys to his car.

But before the brothers fled, the younger one shot Morris, 57, in the head with a .380-caliber pistol that Coles had given him minutes before.

The gun went off accidentally, the younger brother told police. He was sentenced to the custody of the juvenile corrections system until age 21, the maximum penalty for a defendant his age.

Two young women also were charged as accomplices. Shantria Graham, 16, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and grand larceny and is to be sentenced next week. The trial of Vicki Michelle Jones, 20, has been indefinitely postponed while she is hospitalized for severe depression.