ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 26, 1996 TAG: 9611260090
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
The apparent sole witness to an August fatal shooting named former Radford High School sports standout Derrick Chapman as the killer in a preliminary hearing Monday.
The witness also testified that Chapman had casually asked him a short time earlier if he would tell anyone if Chapman killed Anthony Keith Rempson Jr.
The first-degree murder charge against Chapman will be sent to the grand jury. Chapman will continue to be free on $50,000 bond.
Jeremy Almarode, 19, testified that he was driving a van with Rempson seated in the front passenger seat and Chapman in the back when the shot was fired.
"I heard a gunshot. It was inside the van," Almarode told Pulaski County General District Court Judge Edward M. Turner III. "I stepped on the brake, put the van in park and stepped out of the van I didn't know what was going on."
He said he saw Rempson leaning against the back of his seat, bleeding from a head wound. Chapman got out of the van, dragged the body away, returned and told Almarode to drive them out of the wooded area immediately.
"He said, 'Get out of here now,'" Almarode testified. "I was shocked, scared, nervous."
Almarode said that Rempson had given him the keys to drive the van after being introduced to him by Kita Swandi Smith, a friend of Almarode's from school. He said he drove for the four of them, dropping off Smith at a house trailer.
Rempson also went in for about 10 minutes and that was when Chapman spoke to him, Almarode said. "He asked if, if he killed [Rempson], would I tell on him?" Almarode said. "I told him I didn't want any part of it, I didn't want to know about it."
When Rempson got back in, he drove at Chapman's direction to the New River road in the New River community of Pulaski County. He said Rempson seemed almost asleep. There was no conversation, he said, between Chapman and Rempson before the shot was fired.
Even before Smith had been dropped off, Almarode said, there had been little talking among his passengers. "There was a couple of words said between Keith and Derrick," he said. "Something about a party."
The killing happened Aug. 30, he said, shortly after midnight. Almarode said he never saw the pistol that was used, before or after the shooting.
He said he had not known Rempson or Chapman before that night, although he had heard Chapman's name. "I didn't know him personally," Almarode said. "I knew he played football."
Chapman, 18, a senior, has been a star in both football and basketball for the Radford Bobcats.
There was some confusion over the identity of the dead man, who was apparently going by the name of Keith Lopez. He was initially identified incorrectly as Joshua D. Lopez, 21, based on what investigators learned from a witness after the body was found near a railroad track.
The Pulaski County Sheriff's Office learned the correct identity when relatives identified Rempson, 19, who had a Social Security card identifying him as Keith Lopez. He lived in the Washington, D.C., area.
Authorities at first said the killing may have been drug-related. Almarode said he saw no drugs or money when he was with Chapman and Rempson.
Defense attorneys Richard Davis and Beverly Davis argued against admission of an autopsy report, arguing that the medical examiner needed to be present if his opinion on the cause of death was to become part of the record.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Doug Schroder solved that by inking out that part of the report listing the cause of death. Even without medical evidence that the man died from a gunshot wound to the head, however, the judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to send the case to the grand jury.
Chapman was arrested at his home in the Rustic Village Trailer Park the morning after the body was reported.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB