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

DATE: SATURDAY, July 8, 1995                   TAG: 9507100072
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Short

BAR-SLAYING DEFENSE CALLS NO WITNESSES

Attorneys for a man charged with capital murder in the slayings of four people in a neighborhood bar rested their case Friday without calling witnesses.

Prosecutors, meantime, showed the panel of 14 jurors and alternates hearing the case of Michael D. Clagett a videotaped interview with detectives in which Clagett admitted the killings.

Circuit Judge Edward W. Hanson Jr. set closing arguments in the trial for Monday.

Clagett, 33, is charged with the June 30, 1994, slayings of the owner, two employees and a patron of the Witchduck Inn, a blue-collar bar where Clagett was a regular customer. If convicted, he could get a sentence of life in prison or death.

Clagett's girlfriend, Denise R. Holsinger, 30, pleaded guilty May 1 to first-degree murder in the slayings. She is to be sentenced July 19.

Authorities said the couple robbed the bar of $400 a couple of months after Holsinger was fired from her job there as a waitress.

by CNB