Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508250083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In a telephone interview aired Wednesday and Thursday by a Roanoke television station, Paul D. Thompson reportedly admitted bludgeoning Virgie Green and dumping her body in a car trunk behind her Old Southwest home last October.
Thompson said he planned to plead guilty, WDBJ (Channel 7) reported, and that a judge would be "weak" if he did not impose the death sentence.
But Roanoke attorney Jonathan Apgar said he met with Thompson Thursday, and that his client "recants everything attributed to him by Channel 7.''
Apgar said Thompson is "under extreme situational stress from longtime confinement in the city jail," and that Apgar and co-counsel David Damico "have probable cause to believe he is lacking in competency."
Within hours of the broadcast, a judge in Roanoke Circuit Court found probable cause that Thompson is not competent and signed an order transferring him to Central State Hospital for a mental evaluation.
"We don't think it was the product of a rational mind," Apgar said of Thompson's statement.
Prosecutors, however, see it as potential evidence against Thompson, even though they say the 24-year-old also has confessed to police in more detail than he did during the television interview. Police arrived at WDBJ's office late Wednesday with a search warrant, seeking the tape of the interview.
No search was conducted after a WDBJ news executive promised not to erase the tape; prosecutors were working Thursday to secure the tape through a subpoena.
Despite what he said in the interview, Thompson now intends to plead not guilty and try to avoid the death sentence, Apgar said.
Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said Thompson is welcome to plead guilty any time.
"Speaking of being weak, I guess that explains why he didn't show up in court this morning," Caldwell said after being told of Thompson's latest decision. "I was waiting for him."
Authorities allege that Thompson teamed up with his former prison cellmate, David McKeone, on a multistate violent-crime spree, beating and robbing people when money ran low, then hitting the road again.
The two men are charged with killing and robbing a West Virginia man before they came to Roanoke and met Green in October, and both have been convicted of the attempted murder of a Florida man several days after Green was killed.
McKeone was convicted in June of Green's murder and robbery, though he tried to pin most of the blame on Thompson. While McKeone was charged with first-degree murder, prosecutors chose to charge Thompson with capital murder.
The body of Green, 44, was discovered in November in the trunk of a junked car parked behind her Woods Avenue Southwest home. She had been struck in the head with a blunt instrument, and property from her home had been stolen.
Thompson is scheduled to be tried in December.
by CNB