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

DATE: THURSDAY, November 23, 1995                   TAG: 9511240035
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-10   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COURT TO CONSIDER APPEAL IN FRANKLIN MURDER CASE

The Virginia Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the case of Judy Jarrells, a Franklin County woman convicted this year of her husband's murder.

Jarrells' attorney, Mary Harkins of Rocky Mount, said the court has agreed to listen to arguments based on what she believes was insufficient evidence in the case.

Jarrells and a former boyfriend, Curtis Deel, were convicted of the April 1994 murder of Robert D. Jarrells, 59, of Endicott.

During Jarrells' trial, a jury heard testimony from several of her acquaintances that she asked several men - including Deel, whom she met while both were patients in a mental hospital - to kill her husband.

Deel admitted shooting Robert Jarrells, but said Judy Jarrells was involved with the plot from the beginning. Judy Jarrells asked him three times to kill her husband, Deel said.

Jarrells later testified at her trial that she moved out of a trailer she shared with Deel in Bassett and broke off her relationship with him about two weeks before the slaying occurred.

Jarrells then moved back in with her husband at their home in Franklin County, she said.

Harkins says there is no concrete evidence to spell out Jarrells' role in the killing.

Jarrells called 911 and later escaped from a car Deel was driving and called for help again, Harkins told the jury during Jarrells' trial.

But Franklin County Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood argued that Jarrells' actions were part of the scheme she'd cooked up to kill her husband.

Asked about the Court of Appeals decision, Hapgood said: ``I'm confident that the evidence was sufficient enough to convict her.''

The prosecutor is becoming accustomed to murder case appeals. In the past few months, two convicted murderers from Franklin County - Kirby DeHart and Walter Correll Jr. - had their convictions overturned.

DeHart is out on bond until a new trial in January.

An appeals court has reversed the judge's decision to grant Correll a new trial. Correll now faces a Dec. 28 execution pending the result of other legal maneuvers.

by CNB