ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701020027
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
Lawyers for Earl C. Bramblett say he may be mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of killing a family of four and leaving the bodies in a burning Vinton home.
"There is probable cause to believe that the accused lacks substantial capacity to understand the proceedings against him or assist counsel in preparation of his defense," defense attorney Terry Grimes stated in a motion filed this week.
At a hearing scheduled for Friday in Roanoke County Circuit Court, Grimes and co-counsel Mac Doubles will ask a judge to order an evaluation of Bramblett to determine if he is mentally fit to stand trial.
Bramblett, 54, is accused of strangling Teresa Hodges; fatally shooting her husband, Blaine; killing their two daughters, 11-year-old Winter and 3-year-old Anah; and setting their Vinton home on fire the weekend of Aug. 27, 1994.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
With no informant, no eye witness, no murder weapon and no confession, authorities say their case against Bramblett is based solely on circumstantial evidence.
The competency issue surfaced last year, after a psychologist was appointed to determine if Bramblett was legally sane at the time of the killings. In the course of that evaluation - which has yet to be completed - Dr. Evan Nelson began to have concerns about Bramblett's current state of mind.
"Based on all that [Nelson] has heard and seen, he will express substantial concerns about competency," Grimes said.
Bramblett's lawyers declined to give the details on which Nelson based his opinion.
Although motions for mental evaluations are routine in capital murder cases, lawyers for Bramblett say his ability to stand trial may become a genuine issue. "This is not a pro forma motion," Grimes said.
Commonwealth's Attorney Skip Burkart said he is not aware of any evidence to suggest that Bramblett is mentally incompetent. Still, Burkart said he will not object to the motion seeking an evaluation.
"I think he just has to file it," Burkart said. "Why would anybody in their right mind kill little babies?"
Regardless of the motion's final outcome, it is likely to postpone Bramblett's trial from its scheduled Feb. 18 opening. It will take at least several weeks for a psychologist to evaluate Bramblett, Grimes said. And if the evaluation finds that he is incompetent, Burkart is likely to ask for a second opinion from a state-appointed psychologist.
"If there is a so-called battle of the experts, where the state's psychologist says he's competent and ours says he isn't, then there would be a full-blown competency hearing," Grimes said. In that case, it would be up to a judge to decide if Bramblett should stand trial.
It is much easier for a criminal defendant to show he is mentally incompetent to stand trial than it is to prove he was insane at the time of an offense. In deciding whether someone is mentally able to stand trial, judges must consider whether the defendant can understand basic courtroom proceedings and assist his lawyers in preparing a defense.
When someone is ruled incompetent, he is usually treated at a mental institution until he improves enough to stand trial.
If the competency issue postpones Bramblett's trial, it would delay closure to one of Vinton's most shocking, brutal crimes.
On the morning of Aug. 29, 1994, Vinton firefighters responded to a house fire on Virginia Avenue and discovered that a family of four had been killed. Teresa Hodges, 37, was found in the living room, strangled to death. She also had burns over most of her body.
Her husband, 41-year-old Blaine Hodges, was found in an upstairs bedroom. He had been shot in the head. The couple's daughters were found in another bedroom. Each had been shot in the head.
Police believe the killer used gasoline or another fuel to start a fire that destroyed much of the physical evidence in the house.
Bramblett, a gray-haired drifter who was a close friend of the family's and stayed at the home occasionally, became a suspect within days. Police said he was evasive and defensive when questioned about the killings. But at one one point, they said, Bramblett said he felt so bad about what happened that he had considered killing himself.
Later in their investigation, police obtained an oral diary on cassette tapes in which Bramblett expressed "feelings of hostility" toward Blaine Hodges, according to search warrants filed two years ago.
After building a circumstantial case against Bramblett, authorities decided last year to seek indictments from a grand jury.
Bramblett then was arrested in July in Spartanburg, S.C., where he was working in a print shop. He was charged with one count of capital murder, three counts of first-degree murder, three counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony and one count of arson. He has since been held without bond in the Roanoke County-Salem Jail.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Bramblett. color. KEYWORDS: ROMURby CNB