ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
Opening statements in the Harrisonburg murder trial indicate the suspect was manipulated into sex.
Ernie James was a respected business leader and part-time professor, but leading Jamie Raymond and other young women into a prostitution ring got him killed, a defense lawyer said Wednesday.
Raymond was sitting on a couch with James in his den when her jealous husband burst in with a 10-inch kitchen knife, her attorney, Walter Green, said at the start her capital murder trial.
Jeremy Raymond became enraged when he learned that his 19-year-old wife had joined James' prostitution ring, and she was powerless to stop her husband's attack, Green said.
``She hated Ernie James, there's no question about that,'' Green said. ``But she could do nothing to stop what was happening.''
James was a tire company vice president, part-time business instructor at James Madison University and chamber of commerce president. But in 1986, undercover police caught him running a prostitution ring that involved James Madison coeds. He pleaded guilty that year to aiding and abetting prostitution.
He was operating a halfway house for parolees in 1995 when Jeremy Raymond, a resident there, met Jamie. Raymond left the house later that year and married her.
Just before the two married, Green said, James forced the woman into prostitution by threatening to have the state take away her infant daughter, fathered before she met Raymond.
Jeremy Raymond was convicted last month of first-degree murder and burglary in James' June 25 stabbing death.
In a taped statement played at his trial, Raymond said he and his wife attacked James and took a briefcase loaded with pornographic videotapes, $500 cash and contracts James had made with Jamie Raymond and other women for sex.
Green said that on the night of James' death, Jamie Raymond drove to the James' house to receive a $70 payment for having sex and get directions to a hotel where she had another prostitution appointment.
Commonwealth's Attorney Douglas Stark said in his opening statement that Jamie Raymond told a detective after her arrest that she and her husband went to James' house to kill him.
When James turned to face Raymond, Jamie Raymond hit him on the back of the head with a ceramic duck and knocked him to his knees, Stark said. She then stabbed him in the eye, stabbed him 30 more times and slit his throat, the prosecutor said, and her husband's hand was badly cut when he tried to stop her in the middle of the attack.
``This was a joint plan with joint participation,'' Stark said.
After the slaying, the Raymonds burned the briefcase that contained the prostitution contracts in a pit behind a friend's house, Green and Stark said.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB