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

DATE: SATURDAY, June 25, 1994                    TAG: 9406250236 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: B3    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: 940625                                 LENGTH: SUFFOLK

IVOR MAN RECEIVES 20 YEARS IN SLAYING OVER COCAINE DEBT \

{LEAD} A man on trial for first-degree murder was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a lesser charge Friday because a jury determined that he feared his victim was going to kill him over a drug debt.

Travis L. Harris, 25, of Ivor admitted that he fatally shot 21-year-old James Warren in the back of the head Dec. 15 while they and two others drove around Suffolk looking for someone to rob.

{REST} But Harris said he feared his three companions were plotting to kill him because he owed one of them $500 for selling cocaine.

``He was a captive in the car,'' said Timothy Miller, Harris' attorney. ``What was he supposed to do, sit there and die?''

Harris testified that he was in the back seat of a Subaru hatchback driven by Kenneth Davis Jr., and that Warren was in the front passenger seat with a .32-caliber handgun. Orlando Adkins, 16, was in the back seat with Harris, holding a sawed-off, 12-gauge shotgun, Harris said.

As the four drove around the Hollywood section of downtown Suffolk, Harris said, he took Warren's gun and offered to rob someone to get the $500 that he reportedly owed another passenger in the car.

But, instead, he shot Warren with the handgun, then forced Adkins to unload the shotgun, he said.

``I was sweating and had a lump in my throat so big I couldn't swallow,'' Harris testified Friday. ``I tried to talk to him, but all I could do was whisper. I was almost crying, begging a 16-year-old boy not to kill me.''

The three pushed Warren's body into the street and went to Newport News. Harris was arrested three days later.

Harris was sentenced to 20 years in prison for second-degree murder and an added three years on a weapons charge. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for first-degree murder, which requires that a killing be willful and premeditated.

``It's a brutal, premeditated killing,'' Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney F. Jefferson James said. ``It's about one drug dealer gaining respect.''

Miller tried to call witnesses who said they heard the others plotting to harm Harris, but Circuit Judge James C. Godwin said such testimony would be hearsay and would not allow it.

Miller said he plans to appeal.

{KEYWORDS} MURDER SENTENCE

by CNB