ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 3, 1997 TAG: 9703030128
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES he savors so much now are tinged by worry that he could wind up imprisoned, though innocent - again.
More than four months after being pardoned, Troy Lynn Webb relishes his freedom but is haunted by the seven years he spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
``I don't like to go out, especially at night, unless I have someone with me to vouch for me and be able to say where I was and what I was doing,'' he said.
``At first, you never think you could be sent to prison for something you didn't do. But after it happens once, you always think it could happen again.''
Even a simple visit to a grocery store can have its moments of fear. Webb, 30, said he was in the supermarket one day staring at all the new varieties of fruit juices that had come out while he was in prison when he noticed a man in a suit looking at him.
``I was really scared I was about to be arrested again.''
But the man grabbed something off the shelf and walked away. Webb took several deep breaths and left the store quickly.
Gov. George Allen in October granted Webb a full pardon after DNA tests showed Webb was not the man who raped a waitress in 1988 in a Virginia Beach parking lot. The woman had identified Webb as the rapist, and he was convicted and sentenced to 47 years in prison.
After his pardon, Webb returned home so mellow that it puzzled everyone who knew him.
``I was angry the first two or three years in prison,'' he said. He got into arguments with fellow inmates over ``things like who got to use the telephone next.''
``Then I realized that staying angry wouldn't do anything except keep me in prison longer,'' he said. ``I saw people come in to serve short sentences, get into fights and trouble, and end up serving more time than they came with.''
Webb is working at a friend's sandwich shop, earning $5.25 an hour. He said he works 10 to 13 hours a day, six days a week. When he finishes work, he usually goes right home to his mother's or sister's house.
Despite occasional twinges of fear such as the one in the supermarket, Webb said the thrill of freedom hasn't subsided. He said he enjoys just walking along the shoulder of a busy highway to and from work, watching the cars rush past and people hurrying about. He takes day-old bread from the sandwich shop and feeds it to the ducks in the muddy canal behind his mother's home.
``Everything is enjoyable to me now,'' he said.
His mother, Lottie Webb, said he is much quieter now than before he went to prison.
``He always used to have something going on, but now he never wants to go anywhere except work and home,'' she said. ``I think it took a lot from him.''
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Troy Lynn Webb, imprisoned seven years for someoneby CNBelse's crime, now works 10 to 13 hours six days a week at a friend's
sandwich shop.