ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 6, 1997 TAG: 9703060080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER THE ROANOKE TIMES
The defendant in a murder case and another young man say Jason Hibbs, convicted in the death of Ricky Lee Coleman last year, threatened them into helping get rid of Coleman's apparently lifeless body.
One current and one future defendant in last year's death by exposure of 17-year-old Ricky Lee Coleman both testified Wednesday that Coleman appeared dead when they dropped him over an embankment in a rural section of Wythe County.
Eric Dwayne Ball, 21, who took the stand on the third day of his trial, and Erik Wimmer, 19, whose trial date is not yet set, both claimed they helped 20-year-old Jason Hibbs carry Coleman away because Hibbs threatened them.
"He told us that, if we didn't help him or if we told anyone, he would kill us," Wimmer said.
Hibbs was convicted of murder and abduction in November in Coleman's death, after changing his plea as the case was about to go to a jury. He is awaiting sentencing.
Coleman and another boy had accepted Hibbs' telephone invitation to come to his house to party on the evening of Jan. 18, 1996. Hibbs' family was away, and he had access to alcoholic beverages.
"That was the only reason I went up there, because I used to drink pretty heavily," Ball said. He testified in a low voice, almost inaudible at times.
They came in the company of two girls, but later took them home, along with the boy who had arrived earlier with Coleman.
Coleman had been drinking, too, and overturned some furniture in Hibbs' basement. Hibbs punched him, and Coleman collapsed outdoors in Hibbs' yard, where he was lying when Ball, Wimmer and the two girls arrived. Statements from the various parties indicated that Coleman lay outdoors for 51/2 hours.
When Ball and Wimmer returned from taking the girls home, they joined Hibbs in wrapping Coleman in a blanket and putting him in the trunk of Ball's car. "He looked dead," Wimmer said. "When I touched him, he was cold."
Wimmer drove Ball's car about two miles - at Hibbs' direction, he said - down an unpaved section of Virginia 618 in eastern Wythe County. They dropped Coleman over an embankment, where his body was found several days later, after his mother reported him missing.
Ball and Wimmer spent the night at the Hibbs home and later told investigators that they had last seen Coleman walking away from the place wrapped in a blanket. Again, they said Hibbs ordered them to tell that story.
An autopsy showed that Coleman froze to death, with the alcohol he consumed being a contributing factor. The time of death could not be ascertained.
The defense argument is that Coleman could already have been dead from exposure before he was placed in the trunk, or even before Ball arrived at Hibbs' home. In their testimony, Ball and Wimmer both insisted that Coleman showed no signs of life when they handled him.
The jury will get the case this morning after hearing closing arguments from both sides in the trial.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 linesby CNB