Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 13, 1995 TAG: 9504130063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Leach told jurors that Frank E. Pennington Jr., a Vinton man who is serving a 90-month drug sentence, shot Mullins in the face because she owed him thousands of dollars.
Police responded to an emergency call from the 2800 block of Mount Pleasant Boulevard shortly before midnight on April 14, 1991. They found Mullins, who detectives say was a drug-dealer-turned-informant, lying dead in a pool of blood in her living room.
"This trial is about murder. But when you get into it, you'll find out this trial is also about drugs. It's about drugs and what happens when that goes sour," Leach said. "Bonnie Sue Mullins was no saint. She ripped this man off $20,000 to $30,000, and she got killed for it."
But as jurors heard opening statements, the defense painted a different picture, framing the murder as a classic whodunit with a myriad of suspects, including Mullins' hot-tempered husband.
Pennington's attorney, John Lichtenstein, said Jack Mullins, who was caught up in a violent marriage to Bonnie Sue, gave contradictory statements to police.
Lichtenstein also said Jack Mullins had a history of armed confrontations with his wife. Just 13 days before Bonnie Sue was murdered, Jack Mullins came after her with a rifle, the defense attorney said. And five months before that, Jack was arrested for unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon as he sped away from a Montgomery County motel where he'd fought with his wife.
"It's about proof. You'll hear evidence about drugs, but in the end, you'll have to ask yourselves: Is there enough proof that Frank Pennington committed this murder, or do we have to look back at Jack Mullins?" Lichtenstein said.
The night of the murder, Jack Mullins said, he was at his estranged wife's apartment on Stewart Avenue in Southeast Roanoke, where he was preparing packets of marijuana for distribution.
When he returned to the house on Mount Pleasant Boulevard, the couple's 13-year-old daughter, Kim, met him at the back door, he testified. Kim Mullins told the jury she had been awakened by a scream and got out of bed to look for her mother.
A few minutes later, she and her father found Bonnie Sue's body just inside the front door. Kim told the jury she tried to call for help, but the telephone line had been cut. Both testified that, before running next door, Jack stashed his bag of drugs into nearby bushes.
The trial, which is scheduled to take five days, will include testimony from federal prison inmates who say Pennington told them he had to throw away a new pair of shoes because he was afraid he was leaving tracks.
An unidentified grassy footprint was lifted from the kitchen floor, Leach said.
The prosecution also plans to show videotaped testimony from Pennington's former girlfriend, Karen Warner, who is HIV-positive and too ill to testify in person. During a preliminary hearing in October, Warner told the court that Pennington returned to her Bedford County home early on April 15 and confessed to shooting Mullins.
In the days ahead, both sides also are expected to seize upon the fact that someone moved Bonnie Sue Mullins' body between the time her daughter discovered her and police arrived.
The commonwealth will continue with its evidence today.
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by CNB