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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 12, 1995                   TAG: 9508140056
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                  LENGTH: Short

PARENTS OF SLAIN WOMAN FEAR ANOTHER PAINFUL LOSS

The parents of a woman killed in Florida expect their daughter's husband to seek custody of his three children now that a state appeals court has overturned his conviction in the slaying.

``We don't have any reason to think Tom won't want to get his children if he is finally adjudicated a free man,'' Willis Stephenson said of Thomas E. Smolka. ``We're trying to prepare for that contingency.''

``They're happy here,'' Stephenson said. ``They get along real well. We love them like our own children.''

Stephenson said the children haven't heard from their father since he was arrested. A Florida appeals court on Wednesday reversed Smolka's first-degree murder conviction in the July 1991 killing of his wife, Betty Anne.

If Florida authorities do not appeal the ruling, Smolka could be released within two weeks.

Assistant State Attorney Ric Ridgway said he doubts the appeal's panel will grant any motion for rehearing: ``It took them two years to overturn the conviction. I don't think they'll change their minds in 15 days.''

Stephenson, the dead woman's father, and his wife, Betty, have raised the couple's three children for four years. The grandparents were shocked by the decision from the 5th District Court of Appeal.

``I felt the evidence was pretty overwhelming,'' said Willis Stephenson, a retired bank executive.

The appeals court ruled that the circumstantial nature of the case against Smolka, 48, did not justify his March 1993 conviction, for which he was sentenced to life in prison.

by CNB