
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 14, 1994                    TAG: 9406140337 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: B1    EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA  
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: 940614                                 LENGTH: CAMDEN

CAMDEN MAN GETS SECOND DEATH SENTENCE \

{LEAD} A 43-year-old Camden man was sentenced to death for the second time Monday for killing his common-law wife and her mother nearly six years ago.

A jury of seven women and five men deliberated for an hour and 15 minutes before agreeing on the sentence for Wade Larry Cole, who last week was found guilty of first-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

{REST} The penalty is the first death sentence since 1991 in the 1st Judicial District, where a handful of capital murder cases are heard every year.

Cole was convicted of the same crime and sentenced to death in 1989, but the conviction was overturned on a technicality in jury selection, Assistant District Attorney Robert Trivette said.

The slayings occurred June 23, 1988. Cole was arrested after fighting with 30-year-old Theresa Graham, the mother of his two children, and injuring her mother, Hattie Graham, records show.

Hours after being told not to return to the small home near the Camden County Courthouse, Cole burst through the door with a rifle, according to testimony.

Cole shot Theresa Graham through the lip and thigh, and, during a struggle, stabbed her more than 100 times. A medical examiner testified that any of about 28 stab wounds could have been the fatal stroke.

Cole also inflicted a mild stab would on Hattie Graham's chest as she tried to break up the fight. She died of a heart attack before officials arrived, Trivette said, a death the medical examiner attributed to Cole's actions.

Defense attorneys did not deny that Cole killed Theresa Graham, but had argued that he was psychologically imbalanced and had been abusing drugs and alcohol, Trivette said.

Cole apparently believed Graham had been having an affair, although ``there was absolutely no evidence of that,'' Trivette said.

Those in the house during the murder included Cole's then 11-year-old son and the boy's cousin, who had been spending the night on the couch, Trivette said.

Jury selection for the second trial took five days, Trivette said, and the trial lasted another five. After Cole was convicted Thursday, the same jury heard arguments on sentencing. They returned the death sentence just before noon Monday.

``It's always hard to do retrials, especially six years after the crime,'' Trivette said. ``It's just different after six years.''

{KEYWORDS} MURDER TRIAL DEATH PENALTY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

by CNB