ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9702030070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH
SOURCE: Associated Press
A murder charge against a 17-year-old girl implicated in the death of a Kellam High School student was dropped as new details emerged on events leading up to the fatal shooting.
Prosecutors changed the murder charge against Stephanie Wall to accessory after the fact, a misdemeanor, because she was not in the getaway car when Timothy M. Wheaton was killed Jan. 25, said her lawyer, Kathryn Fine.
But charges of attempted malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit malicious wounding were added against Wall stemming from another shooting a few hours before Wheaton was killed, Fine said.
Pamela Albert, assistant commonwealth's attorney, said there were no immediate plans to change the charges or to add new ones against other defendants.
No one was hurt in the earlier shooting, which was reported shortly before Wheaton was killed. The intended victim of the first shooting was a 15-year-old boy, police said.
While the motive for the first shooting remains unclear, defense attorneys have said it apparently was in retaliation for the beating of an unidentified juvenile at the hands of other, unidentified teen-agers earlier in the week.
Defense attorneys for two defendants said the beating started a chain of events that led to both shootings.
James W. Waters Jr., 19, who is charged with murder and using a gun to commit a felony, said last week that he went to visit the boy who was beaten because he was an acquaintance.
``He was jumped, and I wanted to see how he was doing,'' Waters said of his visit, which he said took place about 5 p.m. It was not clear who accompanied Waters during his visit.
The other two defendants in the Wheaton killing are Monica Oliver, 17, and Richard Ethan Hollingsworth, 18. Both are charged with murder. All defendants are being held without bond in the Virginia Beach City Jail. But Fine said she will ask the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Monday to move Wall to the Tidewater Psychiatric Institute because of her deteriorating mental state.
Given that Wall is charged in connection with the first shooting but apparently had no direct involvement in the second, it was unclear at what point she got out of the car.
The car identified in the first shooting was the same car later identified at the scene of the Wheaton murder, police said.
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