Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 15, 1995 TAG: 9504180106
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Police say Mullins, a drug-dealer-turned-informant, died around midnight April 14, 1991, after a bullet from a .32-caliber gun tore through her face and lodged in her brain. The weapon has never been found.
Don Pennington spoke softly and avoided making eye contact with his brother during his testimony, which came on the third day of the trial.
Don Pennington said he took the gun from his girlfriend's father's house in West Virginia and pawned it to Frank for $50. He also testified that Frank told him he was going to Mullins' home the day of the killing to collect a drug debt. Frank asked him to go along, Don said.
"I said, 'I'm drunk and I ain't going nowhere,''' Don told the jury.
A few days later, Don testified, Frank said he had shot Mullins.
"I'm not saying he murdered her. I'm not sure if he did or not," Don said. "But he did tell me he shot her."
Frank Pennington's defense attorney, John Lichtenstein, cross-examined Don Pennington about his criminal record, which includes convictions for two armed robberies and a murder, and asked if he was afraid police had considered him a suspect.
"Your brother stands charged for murder, and you have been where he now sits, haven't you?'' Lichtenstein asked. "You were aware you were considered a possible suspect in this crime, weren't you? Were you worried about going back to jail?''
But Don Pennington said he had no fears about jail, because he had done nothing wrong.
"I didn't even know her," he said of Mullins.
Don Pennington's stepdaughter also testified for the prosecution Friday. Nancy Prohaska told the jury that Frank Pennington came to her home between 11:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. the night Mullins was killed.
When he knocked at her door, Frank Pennington was wearing camouflage pants and a black T-shirt, Prohaska said. Pennington, who was carrying a duffel bag, asked to use her bathroom. When he came out 15 minutes later, he had changed clothes, she testified.
He asked if he could leave the bag there awhile, and Prohaska said she put it in a closet under some clothes. A few weeks later, Frank Pennington came back to claim it.
Prohaska said she was afraid of Frank Pennington because he had threatened to kill Bonnie Sue Mullins. She said she did not look in the bag while it was at her house.
"I hid it under some clothes, because I didn't want my kids going anywhere near it. I didn't know what was in it," she said, later adding, "I thought it might be a gun."
In addition to these witnesses, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Leach presented four federal inmates, who testified that while Frank Pennington was imprisoned with them, he spoke to them about shooting Mullins.
Frank Pennington, 55, of Vinton, is serving a 90-month drug conspiracy sentence in federal prison.
"He said he'd killed someone through a door, and had to throw away a brand-new pair of Reeboks because he was afraid he'd left tracks," inmate Ronald Eugene Jackson said.
The bullet that killed Mullins was fired through her front door.
Jackson is serving time for importing marijuana. He previously had been convicted of burglary, second-degree kidnapping, possession of cocaine, stealing an aircraft and escape.
Lichtenstein seized on Jackson's sentence and the records of the other inmates who testified, attacking their credibility and attempting to show that they had been offered reduced time for their testimony.
"Your testimony today is that in a few quiet moments of friendship, after he'd been charged with murder, Frank Pennington spilled his beans to you, Mr. Life Without Parole, and told you he did it all and now is worried about it?'' the defense lawyer asked inmate Warren Cooper Jr.
Cooper is serving a life sentence on federal drug charges.
The inmates who testified said they had not been offered a deal.
Before the day ended, the defense began putting its witnesses on the stand, including a Roanoke County Jail inmate who testified that he purchased drugs and injected cocaine with Karen Warner in the late 1980s.
Warner, Frank Pennington's former lover, had testified for the prosecution - via videotape - that Pennington confessed to killing Mullins the morning after the slaying. Warner, who has AIDS, also testified that she had never sold drugs or used them intravenously.
The defense is expected to wrap up its case, which likely will include testimony from Frank Pennington, on Monday.
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by CNB