ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310035
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
Hanging out with friends on a Southwest Roanoke street, 19-year-old Michael S. Benton talked about how he was going to kill someone - no one in particular, just someone, a witness testified Thursday.
About that time, Larry E. Donahue walked out of a nearby convenience store and straight into what authorities say was a random killing.
Benton shot him in the back of the head as Donahue walked down a sidewalk on Chapman Avenue the night of Dec. 30, a 15-year-old girl who was with the group of friends testified Thursday in Roanoke General District Court.
Donahue did nothing to provoke the shooting, she said. "He was just walking down the street, minding his business."
After hearing the girl's testimony, Judge William Broadhurst found there was enough evidence to support murder and firearm charges against Benton. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Alice Ekirch said prosecutors will now seek indictments from a grand jury that meets next month.
If the sketchy details provided at Thursday's preliminary hearing hold up at trial, Donahue's death would be Roanoke's first random killing in recent years. Most of the city's murder victims either have known their attackers or were engaged in an illegal activity when killed.
While there was evidence of racial remarks - the girl remembered someone in the group saying "We don't have no love for whities" before the shooting - it was unclear Thursday what role race played in the killing.
"Based on her testimony, I feel that this was not racially motivated," said Assistant Public Defender Darren Haley, who represents Benton. Benton is black; Donahue was white.
The 15-year-old girl appeared to be a reluctant witness, and described what she saw haltingly. She spent most of her time on the witness stand turned away from where Benton was seated.
Broadhurst ordered that her name not be reported.
On the night of Dec. 30, the girl testified, she had seen Donahue in a convenience store, buying a beer. Benton also had been drinking, she said.
As about a half-dozen youths gathered nearby on the sidewalk of the 1400 block of Chapman, Benton began to talk about killing someone, she said. The girl seemed to have questions about how serious Benton was.
But 17-year-old Keith Riles, who is also charged with murder, left the group at one point to get a semiautomatic handgun from Benton's nearby house on 13th Street, according to a search warrant that police filed shortly after the killing.
The girl testified that she never saw the gun in Benton's hand, but that she was sure he shot Donahue as he walked down the sidewalk.
"I saw fire from the gun," she said.
After the first shot was fired, the group scattered. "You don't know these days if the bullet is going to hit you or hit somebody else," she said.
Police found Donahue face down on the sidewalk. Detective N.W. Tolrud, who attended the autopsy, testified that Donahue was shot once in the back of the head at intermediate range, or more than four feet away.
Tolrud testified that Donahue "was probably dead before he hit the sidewalk."
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