Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 14, 1995 TAG: 9503140152
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
The jury found Judy Jarrells guilty of the murder of her husband Monday and sentenced her to life in prison. Jarrells was convicted of arranging for a man to kill her husband.
Robert D. Jarrells, 59, was shot twice - through the left eye and in the stomach - on the morning of April 15 last year at his home in the Endicott section of the county. He died hours later at a Roanoke hospital.
Curtis Deel, Judy Jarrells' estranged lover, confessed to the killing at a January trial and is serving a 50-year sentence for first-degree murder.
The case was bizarre from the start. Deel, 45, testified during his trial that he and Judy Jarrells met in a mental hospital.
Monday's trial was more of the same.
The most compelling moments were provided by a convicted felon who testified against Jarrells.
Wayne Moore, an inmate at Keen Mountain Correctional Center near Grundy, said Judy Jarrells visited him in prison frequently during 1992 and 1993. Moore said he and Jarrells devised a scheme to kill her husband, but he never carried out the plot because he was denied parole in September 1993.
Moore said he and Jarrells had a ``loving'' relationship and that Jarrells would lie to her husband about her whereabouts so she could spend time with him in prison.
Judy Jarrells, 44, sent Moore love letters and a framed certificate proclaiming him ``Lover of the Year.'' Moore also gave prosecutors revealing photos that Jarrells had sent him inside a card that read ``Caught in the act.''
Moore said he decided to notify authorities about his relationship with Jarrells because ``she was running around telling everybody that it was my idea'' after the murder.
The courtroom stirred most after Moore's answer to a cross-examination question.
Jarrells' attorney, Mary Harkins, asked several prosecution witnesses - all of whom said they overheard Jarrells discussing a plot to kill her husband - if they actually thought she was serious.
When she asked Moore, he said, ``I knew she was serious.''
Harkins asked, ``Then why didn't you contact the police?''
Moore replied, ``Because I was going to do it.''
Another inmate, Glennie McBride, who is serving time at the Augusta Correctional Center in Craigsville, testified that beginning in 1988, Jarrells asked him three times to kill her husband.
McBride, who was married to Judy Jarrells' daughter, said he once showed up at the Jarrells' Endicott home to kill Robert Jarrells, but didn't carry it out because a neighbor appeared.
Harkins argued that Judy Jarrells is an ``unstable'' person who ``likes to live on the wild side,'' but who had no reason to kill her husband, because he let her get away with her lifestyle.
But a possible motive was offered in the testimony of Rocky Mount attorney Tim Allen.
Allen said Robert Jarrells came to his law office last March and asked that legal papers be drawn up to terminate Judy Jarrells' interest in the couple's Endicott house and the 21/2 acres on which it stands.
The papers never were signed, Allen said.
In his closing arguments, Hapgood said Robert Jarrells' visit with Allen was his break with his wife of 15 years.
``He was tired of it,'' Hapgood said. ``Judy Jarrells put on the show from 1988 until April 15 of last year so she could get rid of the man who took her back time and time again.''
When the jury's verdict was read, some of Robert Jarrells' family cheered.
``I'm happy,'' said one of his daughters, Edith. ``She was just as much a part of it as'' Curtis Deel.
Jarrells was denied bond and returned to jail. Judge B.A. Davis III did agree to consider a motion made by Harkins to throw out the jury's decision because of insufficient evidence.
Davis said he will rule on the motion if Harkins submits it to the court within two weeks.
by CNB