Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 3, 1995 TAG: 9502030075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As he tried to convince a jury that a 40-year-old man had an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl, Roanoke prosecutor Gerald Teaster held up a typewritten love letter.
``This case begins and ends with this letter,'' Teaster said.
In the letter, purported to be from Ren Heard - a well-known renovator who once was the master builder for Explore Park - the writer longs for his lost relationship with the girl, who ended the affair by moving out of his home last year.
Written at 6 a.m. on March 26, the letter began: ``Another sleepless night.''
`` ... Be my violin, so I may play our song of love with my bow,'' the author wrote to the girl in a letter that was a mixture of romantic prose and graphic, X-rated details of their past lovemaking.
The letter wound up in the hands of the girl's mother. ``And you can imagine what happened next,'' Teaster told the jury.
Police were notified, beginning an investigation that will culminate today in Roanoke Circuit Court, when the jury will be asked to make a decision that could send Heard to prison for up to 10 years.
Heard is charged with having consensual sex with the girl sometime between January and July of 1991, when she was 14, constituting carnal knowledge - also known as statutory rape.
His defense? He had a loving, sexual relationship with the girl, but not until after she turned 15 - thus avoiding the carnal knowledge statute, which applies only to victims ``13 years of age or older, but under 15.''
Pointing out Heard's many accomplishments, including formation of an anti-crime group in the West End neighborhood, defense attorney David Bowers told the jury, ``This is a good man who has exercised poor judgment.''
As for Heard's admitted sexual relationship with the teen-ager, Bowers said, ``You may find that repulsive, but whether you find it legal or illegal is something you will have to decide today.''
The girl, who is now 18, testified Thursday that Heard began to fondle her when she was 14. ``He said he wanted to teach me about my body,'' she testified.
The fondling led to sexual intercourse on a regular basis, the girl said, until she moved out of the home in 1994. ``I couldn't handle it anymore,'' she testified.
Noting that the girl did cooking and cleaning for Heard, in addition to helping with his renovation business, Teaster called it a ``strange, sad relationship in which he made [her] his wife and, to a certain extent, his slave.''
Later in the day, Heard took the witness stand and told a different story.
Although admitting that the relationship was ``a bad mistake on my part,'' he denied that he had sex with the girl before she turned 15.
He said they agreed to have a relationship much like husband and wife, signing a contract in which he gave her half of his Renovation Specialists business and some of his real estate holdings when she was 16. The contract also stipulated that Heard and the girl ``freely give each other our bodies.''
``I loved her very much,'' Heard testified.
by CNB