ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 26, 1997 TAG: 9704280045
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA THE ROANOKE TIMES
Darick D. Wetzel will spend no more than 30 years in prison for his part in a Pulaski County slaying because he agreed to testify against the third defendant.
The second of three defendants in a Fairlawn construction worker's September stabbing and drowning death entered a guilty plea Friday in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
Darick D. Wetzel, 22, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as a principal in the second degree. He entered an Alford plea, under which the defendant maintains his innocence while conceding the state has sufficient evidence to convict him. The plea came only two days after Douglas "Eddie" Gibson's plea of no contest to the same charge.
Under the plea, Wetzel's sentence will not exceed 30 years in prison. Gibson's Wednesday plea agreement limits his maximum sentence to 25 years in prison. The maximum punishment for the charge is life in prison.
In exchange for the pleas, the state agreed not to pursue one count of robbery each man originally faced. The men will not be sentenced until their testimony is used against the third defendant, Joseph R. Graham, who will be tried July 14.
Graham, 27, faces a first-degree murder charge and one count of robbery.
All three men were originally charged with capital murder, which carries a potential death sentence, but the charges were amended to first-degree murder in February when they agreed to waive their rights to a preliminary hearing.
The Fairlawn men are accused of stabbing and drowning Elmer E. Fisher, 48, in the New River near Parrott. Authorities said the four men went to the river together to drink beer, but a fight erupted about a poker game argument from earlier in the week.
Before the night was through, Fisher was left floating in the river, dead from multiple stab wounds. Evidence presented Friday indicated Fisher died from a fatal wound to his upper right chest, but it appeared his attackers had attempted to slit his throat as well.
Police were led to the crime scene by a fifth man who claimed to have found out about the slaying from Gibson, who had bragged and showed him the body. By the time Pulaski County Sheriff's Office investigators found Fisher, his body had been in the river several days.
Gibson's statement to police implicated the other two men as the main attackers. He told police Wetzel and Graham were the ones who stabbed Fisher and held his head under water until he stopped struggling.
Wetzel's version of the events varied only slightly. He said Graham repeatedly attacked Fisher and stabbed the older man in the river. He said, however, that Gibson helped to subdue Fisher when the fight broke out by slamming Fisher's head into the hood of his car.
Police said Fisher had been stabbed with two knives, but only one was found. That knife, Investigator Brian Wade testified, was tested and found to have Fisher's blood on its blade. Wade said he showed the knife to Wetzel's mother and she said it looked similar to one her other son owned. When she went to look for that knife, however, it was missing, Wade said.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Wetzel. color.by CNB