ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512080078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
Benjamin Lilly, who police say was fingered by two co-defendants as the triggerman in Tuesday's shooting death of a Virginia Tech student, was moved from Giles County to the Montgomery County Jail Thursday.
Lilly, 27, of Riner, was served with warrants charging him with the capital murder of Alexander V. DeFilippis, a 22-year-old Virginia Tech junior from McLean.
Lilly also was charged with abduction, carjacking, robbery and four counts of using a firearm in the commission of crimes.
Lilly's brother, Mark Anthony Lilly, 20, also of Riner, and their friend Gary Wayne Barker, 19, of Montgomery County were served with the same charges in the Giles County Jail.
Authorities say Barker and Mark Lilly have told them that Ben Lilly was the one who shot DeFilippis three times in the head with a .38-caliber handgun after they abducted him at a convenience store off Prices Fork Road in Blacksburg, stole his car and left him in his underwear in a remote section of Montgomery County.
All three also are charged in Giles County with two armed robberies and using a firearm to commit a crime.
Investigators said Thursday they believe the trio robbed convenience stores in Eggleston and Pembroke to get money and were intending to drive into West Virginia to hide out.
Montgomery County Sheriff's Lt. Ron Hamlin said the car they originally were driving lost its transmission, so they decided to steal DeFilippis' car.
Authorities believe three guns recovered when Barker and the Lilly brothers were taken into custody were those reported stolen from a Floyd County home late Tuesday afternoon. |n n| At Tech, where students are preparing for exams before winter break, some said the slaying made them re-evaluate their habits and their attention to personal security. Others were saddened but refused to let fear overtake them.
Chirag Patel heard about the killing from his roommate's mother when she called from Fairfax. People were talking about it all over campus Wednesday, he said.
Patel said a female friend, who lives in the Foxridge apartment complex, asked him to drive her home Wednesday night so she didn't have to take the bus. Foxridge is behind the convenience store where the abduction took place.
"When I took her home, I sat in the car waiting for my other friend. I reached over [and] locked the doors."
Hiran Sanimeta, who lived in Blacksburg as a child, said the incident was "horrible. Especially being a college town - not that much happens here."
"I would definitely have second thoughts about walking around at night. I'd be scared now," he said.
Trish Ray, a junior at Tech, said she didn't think the news would faze students from Northern Virginia, where crimes of this sort are more common.
"I live in Vienna. There's a shopping mall a block away from my house, and people are always getting killed over there. It's like, OK, so what else is new?'' she said.
Ray said she won't change her behavior in Blacksburg.
Ben Lilly was paroled in July after serving most of a five-year prison sentence for malicious wounding, breaking and entering, and grand larceny. He is on five years' probation, part of the sentence he received in 1992.
Although he wrote letters to the Circuit Court judge who sentenced him and to the state Parole Board asking for a second chance, Lilly quickly found himself in trouble again after his release from Powhatan Correctional Center.
Lilly was charged in Montgomery County in August with possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony and with attempted breaking and entering. A preliminary hearing on those charges is set for Jan. 9.
Some authorities investigating the DeFilippis slaying don't understand why, since he was on probation, Lilly was allowed out on bond on those felony charges.
Lilly also was arrested Nov. 18 on several traffic charges, including reckless driving and failing to stop for police. He is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 22 on those charges.
Lilly went to prison after being convicted of the malicious wounding of Jill Leslie Clark, a girlfriend who complained that Lilly hit her in the face with a wine bottle, then damaged her car and poured gasoline inside it in October 1990.
Clark wrote in court documents that Lilly caused $3,000 damage to her car and that she spent $5,000 for plastic surgery. "My face is still scarred," she said in the complaint.
Lilly pleaded guilty to the charge, and to breaking into a Christiansburg service station in August 1991 and stealing four cases of beer, 40 cartons of cigarettes, sausage, bacon and cheese.
As part of a plea agreement, Lilly received five years in prison on each charge, with 10 years of the sentence suspended. After his release, he was to be placed on probation for five years.
About six weeks after being sentenced, Lilly wrote Montgomery County Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore, asking to be allowed work release from jail so he could earn money to pay his fines, restitution and court costs. In work release programs, inmates are allowed out to go to work but must return to the jail each evening.
"I feel that time behind bars is wasted time," Lilly wrote Devore.
Lilly was given work release, but was charged with escape in November 1992, after he failed to return to the jail.
In January 1993, he was given an additional six months for the escape.
Two months later, Lilly wrote Devore again. This time, he asked for a reduction in his sentence, and said he had learned his lesson.
"I've had time to realize that my alcohol and drug addictions has been a major factor in my disreguard [sic] for the laws of society," he wrote to Devore. |n n| Ben Lilly's younger brother, Mark Anthony Lilly, has a shorter history in the courts of Montgomery County.
Mark Lilly had been charged with breaking and entering, grand larceny and possessing marijuana. Records show he was found guilty of being drunk in public in June 1994 , and that he also was found guilty of several traffic charges.
Barker, 19, was awaiting trial on five charges, according to court records, including forgery and grand larceny and an appeal of an assault and battery conviction.
In the past year, he was been found guilty of reckless handling of a firearm, destruction of property, petty larceny, some traffic charges and escaping an officer's custody.
In April, a magistrate sought charges against him for violating bond for an assault case. He was found guilty of assault and battery, but the magistrate's charge was dismissed. He was continued on bond but released in his mother's custody.
Staff writer Lisa Applegate contributed to this story.
POLICE SEEK WITNESS
Police want to talk to a man who witnessed the abduction of Alexander DeFillipis at the Hethwood Xpress store Tuesday night.
Capt. O.P. Ramsey of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said a witness to DeFillipis' abduction came into the store, told a man traveling with DeFillipis that he was being abducted, then left the store without giving his name.
Ramsey asked that the witness, and anyone else who saw something but hasn't talked to police, call the Sheriff's Office at 382-6912 or the Blacksburg Police Department at 961-1150.
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