Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 1, 1995 TAG: 9505010057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
Randy G. Bowman, 40, now claims he did not hear Stockton make the deal that led to his conviction and sent him to death row.
Bowman's apparent recantation comes as Stockton's appeals have nearly run their course. Wednesday is the deadline for Stockton's lawyers to file their plea for a final review of his case by the U.S. Supreme Court. After that, Stockton's last option is to ask Gov. George Allen for clemency.
The prosecutor in the 1983 case says that even though he is skeptical of Bowman's change of heart, the case should be reinvestigated and Stockton should not be executed until questions are answered.
Stockton, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence while on Virginia's death row for 12 years, said he expects an execution date to be set for mid- to late summer.
Stockton, 54, was charged in 1982 with the 1978 murder of Kenneth Wayne Arnder, 18, whose body was found near Mount Airy, N.C. Arnder was shot in the head, and his hands were hacked off above the wrists. Arnder's mother said she last saw her son alive with Stockton.
In 1982, authorities in Patrick County filed murder charges against Stockton. According to the state, Stockton killed Arnder in Patrick County, then moved his body to North Carolina. No physical evidence linked Stockton to Arnder or the murder to Virginia, and no weapon was found.
But Anthony Giorno, the assistant commonwealth's attorney who tried the case, had a witness: Bowman, who testified he was present at the house of Tommy Lee McBride when he heard Stockton agree to kill Arnder for $1,500.
Bowman testified that McBride wanted Arnder killed because of a soured drug deal. McBride, Stockton and others named by Bowman as being present at the meeting denied that it ever occurred.
Giorno was able to seek the death penalty because of Bowman's claim that it was a contract killing. Bowman was the only witness who said he heard the deal.
Yet last week, Bowman told The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star in an interview in his Mount Airy, N.C., apartment that he never heard Stockton accept such a deal.
``I don't know if they [McBride and Stockton] made a deal,'' Bowman said. ``I was in there to sell something. The subject came up ... how he [McBride] would like to have him dead, so I'm out of there. I've never said I heard - I didn't hear Stockton say, `I'm going to do it.'''
Giorno, now an assistant U.S. attorney in Roanoke, said that he was skeptical ``of someone who changes their story 13 years after the fact. ... Up to this point, Randy Bowman has been steadfast and consistent in what he has said.''
Yet Giorno added that Bowman's apparent change of heart gave him pause.
``Certainly the case should be reviewed,'' he said. ``It may impugn the murder-for-hire aspect. If it takes additional time to conduct a review, we should do that.
by CNB