ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 19, 1996 TAG: 9606190065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
A Roanoke judge found probable cause Tuesday to support charges against a woman accused of stabbing her live-in boyfriend to death outside their apartment in May.
Joyce Ann Mohadess, 41, twice confessed to stabbing Thomas Earl Spivey in the chest, witnesses testified at a preliminary hearing in Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Judge John Ferguson certified the case to a grand jury that will meet in July, according to Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Bowers.
Spivey, 40, was found lying face down and bleeding in the foyer of his Patterson Avenue Southwest apartment the night of May 16, police said earlier. He died several hours later at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
A woman who lived in the same apartment building in the 1900 block of Patterson testified at Tuesday's hearing that Mohadess commented to her the day of the killing that Spivey owed her $40 and that she was going to "f--- him up."
After leaving the woman's apartment for about five minutes, Mohadess returned and told her that she had just stabbed Spivey, Bowers said.
When police arrived a few minutes later, Mohadess first told them that Spivey had fallen on a nail. But she ended up confessing a second time to Detective M.S. Rubeiz of the Roanoke Police Department.
Mohadess, who has been incarcerated since she was charged, did not testify at the hearing. Assistant Public Defender Gretchen Knoblauch argued unsuccessfully that the charge against Mohadess should be reduced to manslaughter.
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