Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 9, 1995 TAG: 9511090018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
For a few seconds, the murder suspect and the grieving father made eye contact.
"I saw a kid. Somebody that I couldn't punch in the face," said the father, James Vaughn. "But I got angrier, and I wasn't thinking about him being a kid. To me, he's more like an animal."
So, as two police officers moved to restrain him, Vaughn yelled the first thing that came to his mind: "You little son of a bYou killed my daughter!"
Vaughn said Monday that he also remembers yelling: "Take a good look at my face. You changed my life, so now I'm going to be a part of yours."
Vaughn came face to face last week with 16-year-old Tommy Helms, who is charged with the first-degree murder of Lavina Scales, 15, of Martinsville.
The meeting was an accident.
Vaughn, who was at the Martinsville Social Services Department at the time, said he was unaware that Helms was in the city courthouse for a bond hearing.
Upon being told that that Helms was to be escorted outside the courthouse to a waiting police car, Vaughn bolted out the door, sliding between two police officers who'd come into the office to try to stop him.
"He's shown no remorse," Vaughn said of Helms. "I couldn't pump eight shots into a dog's head. How could you stand there and watch?"
Lavina Scales' body was found Oct. 25 in a ravine by the side of a remote stretch of Virginia 679 in the Rock Hill community of Henry County.
She had been shot eight times in the head with two handguns.
The inhumanity of his daughter's murder grinds in Vaughn's gut.
He was so close to bringing his family together.
On Oct. 25, Vaughn, 36, was to appear in court to finalize a custody agreement that would allow him more time with his kids - Lavina and her two younger brothers, Lionel, 12, and Terrence, 11.
The children's mother, 36-year-old Elizabeth "Laverne" Scales, died unexpectedly on Sept. 29 of a heart ailment.
Vaughn and Scales had never married, but he'd seen his children regularly. After her death, he said he immediately decided that, as a responsible father, he had to seek custody of his kids. He said he was looking forward to spending more time with Lavina - who pushed the limits placed on her by her grandmother.
"She liked to stay out late, but she wasn't into drugs or anything like that. She was still a baby. The three things she liked most were eating pizza, eating candy and smiling a lot."
Lavina Scales had been missing for two days before her body was found, and her family had notified the police. During that time, Vaughn said, he thought about how he could be more of a parental influence on his daughter so she would grow up with sound values.
But, a few minutes past midnight on Oct. 26, a phone call shattered his dream of a united family.
Sheriff's investigators asked Vaughn to come to the hospital to see whether the body of a teen-age girl was that of his daughter.
He went to the hospital, but couldn't bring himself to look at the body. Instead, he asked two family members to give him the news.
"I was delirious, really," he said.
When he learned it was Lavina, he walked out of the Martinsville hospital in a daze.
He wandered around town for a while, until a police officer picked him up and took him back to the hospital.
Vaughn, who lives in Martinsville but works at Camco Manufacturing in Greensboro, N.C., hasn't been to work in more than a week. He said he's not sure when he's going back, because "I can't function normally right now. I want some answers."
Vaughn, though, did finalize a joint custody agreement last week - that's why he was at Social Services the day of Helms' bond hearing - so he now gets to spend more time with his sons.
But for now, his thoughts are with his daughter. Vaughn brought three pictures of her to an interview Monday, along with some notes he'd written to himself about her and the slaying.
"I understand what people mean when they say it's like a nightmare," he said.
by CNB