Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 26, 1995 TAG: 9510260060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Scotty Wayne Overby, 27, was charged after investigators said he confessed to capital murder, rape and defiling Sheila Ann Stafford's body. Those three charges were certified to a grand jury earlier this month after a preliminary hearing in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Wednesday, a Montgomery County grand jury returned indictments on those charges, and on a fourth indictment prosecutors sought that charged Overby with committing sexual penetration with an inanimate object.
The charge is important, Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Keith said, because it can be a basis for a capital murder charge. Proving a rape of a deceased person sometimes is difficult, Keith said, so the new charge could help bolster the capital case should the rape charge fall.
At the preliminary hearing, a videotape of the crime scene was played, showing what investigators found when they came upon the gruesome slaying.
Stafford, 27, was found lying on the bedroom floor of a Shawsville trailer on Aug. 13. Investigators said she had been stabbed in the neck and then choked with a board, some belts and an alarm clock cord, and her breasts were mutilated. She was raped before she was strangled, then again hours after she was killed. Her body was urinated on, and obscenities were scribbled on her body with a black pen.
Tammy Stafford of Salem has said her sister went to see Overby because he had told her he had quit drinking and started going to church and wanted to talk about a reconciliation.
Initially, Overby told investigators the couple had consensual sex and that he killed Stafford in the middle of an argument. But later, he said he forced her to have sex and flew into a fit of rage when she cursed him afterward, a deputy testified earlier this month.
Overby's attorneys believe it's possible that Overby changed his story so he could face a capital murder charge, punishable by death.
Keith said his office will seek the death penalty. Defense lawyers have filed a motion for a change of venue.
by CNB