ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 1, 1996 TAG: 9611010065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
MEMO: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.
5 youths charged in rape of girl
PETERSBURG- Five middle school students have been arrested and charged with abducting and raping a female classmate.
Police said the attack occurred at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at Peabody Middle School. Petersburg Police Sgt. Patrick J. Kelleher would not release details of the attack or say where on school grounds it occurred.
The 14-year-old victim reported the attack to relatives, Kelleher said. The girl was treated at a hospital and released.
Kelleher said four youths were arrested Wednesday and a fifth was taken into custody Thursday. By late Thursday, two had been released and three remained in custody.
Petersburg Commonwealth's Attorney Cassandra Burns said three 14-year-old boys charged in the case could be tried as adults. The two other suspects are 13, too young to be tried as adults. A preliminary hearing for all five boys has been scheduled for Jan. 23 in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Petersburg public school Superintendent Wallace M. Saval said he will recommend that the boys be expelled.
Saval met with school faculty and staff members Thursday morning to talk about security.
``We will be working with administrators and faculty to see that measures are put in place that effectively increase our security,'' he said.
- Associated Press
Suspended officers return to duty
FREDERICKSBURG - Four narcotics officers suspended in September after the death of a drug suspect are back on duty.
City Police Chief Jim Powers said Officers Robert Banks, T.S. Garrett, Brent Taylor and Ken Sekuterski acted properly, and he restored them to full duty Monday.
Bryant M. ``Bee'' Pressley died from asphyxiation during a Sept. 11 drug raid. An initial report from the state medical examiner's office indicated that Pressley's death might be ruled a homicide.
Pressley, 32, was reportedly trying to swallow crack cocaine when he was grabbed by several officers and suffered a damaged windpipe.
Pressley was not the target of the raid but was at the home when police arrived.
- Associated Press
Ambush argument presented too late
RICHMOND - A murderer waited too late to argue that prosecutors ambushed him by producing surprise evidence linking him to two other slayings, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Coleman Wayne Gray did not raise his claim of prosecutorial misrepresentation until his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
``The Supreme Court is not the appropriate forum in which to raise an issue for the first time,'' Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in a unanimous opinion.
Gray was convicted of killing Richard McClelland in Suffolk during a 1985 kidnapping and robbery. His co-defendant pleaded guilty and testified against him.
The day before the sentencing phase of Gray's trial was to begin, prosecutors said they planned to introduce evidence of similarities between the McClelland killing and the 1984 slayings of a woman and her young daughter.
Gray's lawyer objected that he did not have enough time to prepare a rebuttal, citing a state law that says the preferred practice in Virginia was for the state to advise the defense of evidence to be used in the penalty phase. But the lawyer did not ask for a continuance, and Gray did not claim he had been tricked by the prosecution until the case got to the Supreme Court, the appeals court said.
The trial judge allowed the jury to hear the evidence, and Gray was sentenced to death.
- Associated Press
Murder victim's mom asks clemency
RICHMOND - A woman whose son was murdered in prison has asked Gov. George Allen to grant clemency to the man scheduled to be executed next week for the crime.
Reba Inez Dunford of Loudoun County said she has doubts that Joseph P. Payne is the person who killed her son, David Dunford.
Dunford was fatally burned at the Powhatan Correctional Center in March 1985 when someone threw a flammable liquid into his cell. Payne, a fellow inmate, was convicted of the killing and sentenced to die.
At the time, Payne was serving a life sentence for the murder of a Prince William County woman. Dunford's sentence was 15 years for burglary.
Payne, 40, is scheduled to be executed by injection Thursday at the Greensville Correctional Center.
``I can think of no greater tragedy than killing an innocent man,'' Dunford said in a sworn affidavit dated Tuesday and sent to Allen. ``Please do not let this happen. It would be a terrible mistake, and one that I could not live with.''
A spokeswoman for Allen said the case is being reviewed.
- Associated Press
Woman charged in murder for hire
WINCHESTER - A Winchester woman has been charged with capital murder for hire in the August slaying of a woman.
Leslie Gibson, 28, was arrested Wednesday in Charlottesville, Capt. Ralph Hite of the Winchester Police Department said. Hite declined to comment on Gibson's alleged role in the killing.
Kasandra McDaniel was riding a bicycle near an apartment complex Aug. 24 when she was shot in the head three times. Weston W. Williams was arrested near the crime scene hours after McDaniel's death.
McDaniel's mother, Crystal, said her daughter was living with Williams.
- Associated Press
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