Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 20, 1995 TAG: 9501200113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
It ended with a murder conviction.
A Franklin County jury found Curtis Deel guilty Thursday of the first-degree murder of an Endicott man and sentenced him to 50 years in prison.
Robert Jarrells, 59, was found on the floor of an enclosed porch at his home off Virginia 793 on April 15. He had been shot in the stomach and through the left eye. He died a few hours later.
During Thursday's trial, the jury heard a bizarre story of what led up to the murder.
Testimony revealed that Deel bought a gun at a pawn shop and hitchhiked from Dickenson County - where he lived for a number of years - to Franklin County on April 14. After eating at the Ferrum Dairy Queen, he made his way to Jarrells' home.
Deel, who has two holes in his heart and is deaf in one ear, was carrying a black duffel bag. Inside it were a 9mm pistol, a holster, a box of 9mm shells and some personal items.
Inside the home were Jarrells and his wife, Judy, who was romantically involved with Deel - a relationship that started, Deel said in court, while both were patients at Southwest Virginia Mental Health Institute in Marion in the fall of 1993.
Deel said Thursday that Jarrells asked three times over the course of several months for Deel's help in killing her husband.
Deel and Judy Jarrells were living together in a Henry County trailer just days before the murder.
Around 11 the night of April 14, Deel spread a white blanket behind a tree on a hill above the Jarrells' home and went to sleep.
At 7:30 the next morning, he woke up.
He strapped on the gun. Down below, he could see Robert Jarrells doing some work on his house. Deel watched and waited.
Hours later, Judy Jarrells - whom Deel has implicated in the crime - came out of the house.
"She was carrying an orange mop bucket," Deel, 45, remembered Thursday. "She was all fixed up, and she looked beautiful. I crept down to the creek where I could talk to her, and I said I was ready to do it."
Deel said he made up his mind to "help" Judy Jarrells when he arrived at the Henry County trailer in early April and found her gone. Later, he said, Judy Jarrells told him that her husband had come to the trailer and "stole" her back against her will. Deel said Jarrells told him she had been abused by her husband.
But Deel said Thursday he was also "scared" and that "I had no plans when I went" to Endicott on April 14.
Minutes later, though, just after 11 a.m., gunshots rang out, and Robert Jarrells' 400-pound body slammed down on the porch floor, blood pouring from his head onto a concrete step below.
Deel said Judy Jarrells later fired a shot at him with a .22-caliber pistol, but missed. He told investigators he tied her up with a phone cord to control her.
"I didn't understand what was happening," he said.
And that's where Deel's story Thursday took some different turns from the one he told investigators when he confessed to the killing the night after it happened. He was arrested after deputies found him walking in a field near Endicott, about six hours after Robert Jarrells was killed.
Deel testified, for example, that Judy Jarrells fired the bullet that went through her husband's eye. His 30-page statement never mentions that, however.
Deel also said Thursday, contrary to his earlier statement, that Robert Jarrells grabbed the gun and it went off accidentally.
"I promised the man I wouldn't hurt him," said Deel, his voice choked with tears. "Once you take a life, there's no way to bring it back. God have mercy on me."
While cross-examining Deel, Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood asked him: "So you're telling me that this 30-page tape-recorded statement is entirely wrong?
"Yes, it is," replied Deel.
"The story told today has nine months of improvement on it," Hapgood told the jury.
Deel's attorney, Wayne Inge, conceded his client's guilt. In his closing arguments, he asked the jury to remember Judy Jarrells' alleged role in the murder.
"Please don't give it all to him," Inge said.
Judy Jarrells, 43, is scheduled to go on trial March 13 for her husband's murder. She has told investigators that Deel attacked her after the murder and tried to choke her with the phone cord, and she fled for her life.
Both Inge and Hapgood - who recommended a life sentence for Deel - said they were satisfied with the jury's sentence Thursday.
"To be honest," said Inge, "with his health problems, anything would have probably been a life sentence."
by CNB