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

DATE: SATURDAY, June 17, 1995                   TAG: 9507120079
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                                 LENGTH: Short

STATE FINISHES CASE IN COP SHOOTING TRIAL

A police officer who was shot three times as he sat in his patrol car would have died from any of the wounds, a medical examiner testified Friday in the trial of the man accused of killing him.

``All three were fatal wounds,'' Dr. Leah Bush told a panel of 14 jurors and alternates as the capital murder trial of Maurice Boyd ended its first week.

Boyd, 30, is charged with the May 13, 1994, slaying of Officer Larry Bland, who had stopped Boyd on a traffic check. Authorities contend Boyd shot Bland while sitting in the back of the officer's cruiser.

Bush, the deputy assistant medical examiner for the Tidewater region, said Bland was shot three times in the head. Two of the bullets went through his brain, she said, and the third went downward into his neck and tore open his jugular vein.

She said two of the bullets were fired at such close range that gunpowder burns were left on Bland's head.

Jurors were shown seven photographs of the wounds as the medical examiner explained the autopsy. After her testimony, the prosecution rested its case.

Circuit Judge Robert Curran agreed to a request by defense attorneys James Ellenson and Robert Lawrence to put off their case until next week to allow time for a laboratory examination of a blood sample from Boyd.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB