ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 7, 1997 TAG: 9703070053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Eric Ball, 21, was found guilty of first-degree murder and abduction in the death of a fellow guest at a party in January 1996.
A jury convicted a Wythe County man Thursday of first-degree murder in the death by exposure of a 17-year-old.
Eric Ball, 21, was also convicted of abduction. The jury recommended the minimum 20-year sentence on the murder conviction and another six months for abduction.
Circuit Judge Colin Campbell will formally impose sentencing after considering procedural objections from the defense, a presentence report on Ball and a victim's impact statement on the family of Ricky Lee Coleman.
The jury deliberated for about five hours on the verdicts, then another 30 minutes on the punishments. The prosecution had sought the maximum sentences of life imprisonment for murder and 10 years for abduction.
Ball is the second of three young men charged in Coleman's death to be tried. Jason Hibbs, 20, pleaded guilty in November to murder and abduction and has not been sentenced. Erik Wimmer,19, is awaiting trial.
The three gave conflicting statements to investigators, but what emerged was that Hibbs, Ball and Wimmer loaded Coleman into the trunk of Ball's car, drove several miles down a rural road and dumped him over an embankment. His body was found several days afterward. Death was caused by exposure, hastened by the alcohol he had consumed.
Hibbs admitted hitting Coleman after Coleman, who had been drinking, upset some furniture in Hibbs' home Jan. 18, 1996. Coleman lay in Hibbs' yard for 5 2 hours while partygoers came and went.
Ball and Wimmer arrived after the hitting incident. They claimed that Coleman seemed already to be dead when they carried him off, and said that they told false stories of Coleman leaving under his own power because Hibbs threatened them.
The defense argued that Ball could not be convicted of murder if Coleman was already dead when he was put in the car.
Sobs arose from the defendant's family and friends on one side of the courtroom after the verdict, and from Coleman's family on the opposite side when Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Keith Blankenship described Coleman as being ``thrown away like a piece of garbage.''
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