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

DATE: THURSDAY, June 22, 1995                   TAG: 9506220071
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SLAYING SUSPECT FACES PSYCHIATRIC TESTING

A Circuit Court judge has ordered a psychiatric evaluation for a man charged in a multistate crime spree that included a stop in Roanoke, where an Old Southwest woman was beaten to death and stuffed into a car trunk.

Paul David Thompson, 25, is charged with capital murder in the death of Virgie Green.

One of his lawyers, Jonathan Apgar of Roanoke, said Wednesday that there are "serious questions" about Thompson's mental state that need to be explored before his trial.

Judge Clifford Weckstein ordered that Thompson be evaluated at the Institute of Law and Psychiatry at the University of Virginia.

Apgar and co-counsel David Damico have not filed a notice of an insanity plea for Thompson. Instead, the purpose of the psychiatric evaluation is to prepare for a possible sentencing phase of his trial in which a judge or jury would be asked to decide between life in prison or the death penalty.

Apgar and Damico said they expect prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Thompson, based in part on his extensive criminal record. Thompson has been charged with or convicted of crimes in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida and Virginia, Damico said.

Thompson and 27-year-old David Thomas McKeone, drifters who met in a West Virginia prison, are accused of beating Green to death with a blunt instrument last October and dumping her body in a car behind her Woods Avenue home.

Authorities have said the men also are suspects in the killing of a West Virginia man before Green's death, and both have been convicted of the attempted murder of a Florida man several days after they fled the Roanoke area.

McKeone is scheduled to be tried for first-degree murder next week; Thompson's trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 11.

by CNB