ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 2, 1996 TAG: 9607020079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
TERRY WAYNE STEPHENS has been charged with last year's slaying of 19-year-old Antoine Wilkerson.
More than a year after a 19-year-old man was found slumped in the seat of a car parked on a Northwest Roanoke street, bleeding from gunshot wounds, authorities have made an arrest in the fatal shooting.
Terry Wayne Stephens, 20, was charged with murder and use of a firearm in indictments returned Monday by a grand jury in Roanoke Circuit Court.
He is accused of killing Antoine Leroy Wilkerson of Roanoke on March 29, 1995.
At about 12:30 p.m. that day, a passer-by found Wilkerson's body slumped in a car parked at 15th Street and Centre Avenue Northwest. Blood splatters were found 10 feet from the car and on the driver's outside door handle, leading police to believe he was shot outside the car.
Witnesses told police they had heard loud rap music coming from the car about a half-hour earlier. And several people in the area reported hearing two gunshots and seeing a car leave the area seconds later, police said at the time.
An autopsy determined that Wilkerson died from several gunshot wounds to the abdomen.
Shortly after Wilkerson's death, family members said the 19-year-old seemed worried, and that he asked his mother if she had life insurance on him.
On the day he was killed, Wilkerson left his girlfriend's home after he was paged by a friend.
Stephens had been a suspect in the killing for some time, Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell said, but authorities only recently obtained new information that led to the charges. Caldwell declined to comment on what the new evidence was.
Stephens, of Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, was arrested Monday afternoon, shortly after he was indicted by the grand jury. He was being held in the Roanoke City Jail on Monday night in lieu of a $100,000 bond.
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