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

DATE: SATURDAY, September 9, 1995                   TAG: 9509110091
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DRIFTER GETS LIFE TERM IN WOMAN'S SLAYING

A drifter who roamed the East Coast, leaving a path of robbery and violence behind him, was sentenced Friday to two life terms in prison for killing and robbing a Roanoke woman whose body he stuffed in a car trunk.

David McKeone received an additional 20 years on a grand larceny charge for stealing property from the Old Southwest home of Virgie Green, who was struck in the head with a large wrench as she played cards with McKeone and his friend from prison one night last October.

In asking Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein to impose the maximum sentence of two life terms on the murder and robbery convictions, Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom said that Green was "befriended, used, butchered and abandoned - stuffed in a trunk and left to rot."

By the time Green's body was discovered behind her Woods Avenue home Nov. 1, McKeone and his companion, Paul D. Thompson, were in Florida. They have since been convicted of attempted murder in the robbery of an elderly man near Tampa.

Both men also are charged with killing a West Virginia man several months before they came to Roanoke and met Green, who befriended them and invited them to stay with her.

At his trial in June, McKeone, 28, testified that Thompson killed Green, and that McKeone's only role in the crime was helping dispose of her body and taking some of the property from her home.

But in an interview since then with WDBJ (Channel 7), McKeone said he was the one who struck the fatal blow.

He reverted to his earlier testimony on Friday, saying that he decided to call the television station and make a false confession after seeing Thompson declare in his own interview that he was ready to die for capital murder.

"I got to thinking that there's no way I'm going to let Mr. Thompson come in this court and take the easy way out, while I'm sitting in the penitentiary suffering for the rest of my life," McKeone testified.

Thompson is scheduled to be tried in December on a charge of capital murder.

Although McKeone normally would be eligible for parole after serving about 14 years, Branscom said the number of charges against him in other states makes that difficult to predict.

"With all the charges that he faces, I would hesitate to speculate when - if ever - he will become eligible for parole," the prosecutor said.

Keywords:
ROMUR

by CNB