Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 25, 1995                   TAG: 9505250092
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Medium

PROSECUTION RELYING ON DNA EVIDENCE IN CAPITAL MURDER CASE

But Derek R. Barnabei ``always had a line for the ladies'' he met while hanging out on the Old Dominion University campus, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Valerie Bowen said in opening arguments at Barnabei's trial.

Prosecutors contend Barnabei, 28, killed Sara Wisnosky, a 17-year-old Old Dominion University student from Lynchburg. They say Barnabei dumped her body in the Lafayette River and fled with money he had borrowed from two other students at a campus fraternity where he organized parties.

But Barnabei's lawyer, James R. Broccoletti, said his client had no motive to hurt Wisnosky.

``Derek and Sara were lovers,'' Broccoletti told the panel of 16 jurors and alternates - 10 women and six men - who were selected over two days since proceedings began Monday. ``Derek and Sara had a relationship.''

Wisnosky's nude body was found floating in the river on Sept. 22, 1993, the evening after she left her dormitory roommate a note saying she planned to stay with Barnabei.

Broccoletti suggested that Wisnosky may have decided to walk back to her dorm after staying with Barnabei and became a victim of the high-crime neighborhood where he lived near the campus.

Bowen, who said she plans to seek the death penalty if Barnabei is convicted, acknowledged that the prosecution's evidence is circumstantial.

But she said DNA testing showed that Wisnosky's blood was on Barnabei's bed frame and the wall of his room, as well as on a surfboard that he had kept in the trunk of his car for another student.

Barnabei, who was not an ODU student but helped the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity recruit members and organize parties in the opening weeks of the new school year, disappeared a couple of hours before Wisnosky's body was found, Bowen said.

He was arrested three months later living under an assumed name in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

Bowen said Barnabei had been at a TKE party until early on the day of the murder while Wisnosky waited for him at his house.

Other residents of the house said they heard loud music coming from Barnabei's room after he returned about 2 a.m., the prosecutor said. Later that morning, she said, Barnabei woke up another resident whose Jeep was blocking his car and drove off in such a hurry that he struck a neighboring house.

When police searched Barnabei's room, most of his personal effects were gone, she said.

Broccoletti said Barnabei had come to Virginia from New Jersey, where his parents lived near Atlantic City, because he had written some bad checks and wanted to earn money to pay off those debts.