ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FINCASTLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
Timmy Stocks estimated his speed at near 120 mph when he lost control of a stolen Chrysler New Yorker and slammed into Timothy Mays' four-door Volkswagen, ending a 12-mile police chase.
Though Mays was going 55 mph, the speed and mass of the big sedan Stocks was driving sent Mays' little car hurtling some 60 feet in the opposite direction. State police found it wedged between two pines with its bumper about 8 feet from the ground.
Mays, a 29-year-old photography buff from Covington, died on a helicopter bound for Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Overcome by remorse, Stocks, a 19-year-old from Lost Creek, Ky., chose to plead guilty to felony murder Tuesday and face up to 20 years in prison rather than challenge the unusual charge. Such accidents usually result in a manslaughter charge. Felony murder applies to cases where a homicide is committed in the process of another felony, in this case larceny.
Botetourt County Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom said he knew it was a risk to go forward with the murder charge. Stocks could have been acquitted if a judge or jury decided it was inappropriate. Branscom had expected a challenge on the charge, since it was "right for appeal."
Stocks' attorney, Bill Cleaveland, also had "major questions" about the appropriateness of the murder charge, but didn't challenge it because Stocks was sorry for what happened and was willing to take his punishment.
In exchange for the guilty plea, Branscom has agreed to ask for a sentence of no more than 15 years in prison on the murder charge. The maximum sentence on the charge is 20 years.
Branscom said he doesn't doubt Stocks' remorse, since the murder was the result of reckless behavior and not malice.
The whole affair started when the passenger in the car, Johnny Wayne Hayes, 21, stole the car from the auto mechanics department of a Breathitt County, Ky., vocational school, according to testimony..
Two days later, Stocks and Hayes were heading east on Interstate 64 in Alleghany County. That's when Trooper J.J. Daniels, headed west, clocked them on radar at 87 mph.
Daniels turned and chased them, he testified, with his speedometer reading 111 mph before he saw Stocks turn the big car off the interstate toward U.S. 220.
Daniels chased the car through the Cliftondale Park subdivision and south onto 220, he said, getting within four or five car lengths of them at one time.
As the chase blew through the tiny town of Iron Gate, Daniels said, Stocks passed a pickup truck by steering through a roadside parking lot but hit a parked truck on the way.
Daniels lost sight of the car as it passed through Rainbow Rock Gap just south of Iron Gate, he said, but caught sight of it again by the time he reached Dudley Straight Stretch. He was traveling 115 mph on the long straightaway, but Stocks pulled away.
By then, Daniels said, his sergeant had set up a device to puncture the tires on the car a few miles down the road. With some curves coming up, he broke off the chase.
A few seconds later, Stocks lost control in one of those curves and slid into Mays' car. He told Trooper C.A. Davis he was going about 120 mph, Davis testified.
On impact, the stolen car flipped into the air, then slammed down on its side, hitting a second car, driven by Ellis Poe Cobb Jr., a federal probation officer from Daleville. Cobb testified he was treated for neck and back injuries.
Mays' car was wedged so firmly between the trees that rescue workers were able to stand on it to cut him out of the front seat.
His knee still clad in a brace as a result of injuries he sustained in the crash, Stocks offered no excuses to Judge George Honts III.
"I know what I did was wrong, and I'm truly sorry about what happened," he said. "If I could change what happened, I would but I'm willing to accept my punishment."
Besides the murder charge, Stocks also pleaded guilty to eluding a police officer ending in personal injury, for which he could receive another five years in prison. His sentencing is set for April 10 at 2 p.m.
Hayes is due in court in Botetourt Thursday to stand trial for stealing the car, but Branscom said he will move that the charge be dropped since Hayes has also been charged for the theft in Kentucky.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB