THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 17, 1994 TAG: 9411170504
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JODY R. SNIDER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
The family of a slain man wept and one juror walked out of Circuit Court crying Wednesday as Valerie Allmond was acquitted of murdering her friend's husband, Willie ``Tommy'' Colbert.
Circuit Court Judge Westbrook J. Parker acquitted Allmond on one count of murder after the jury took two hours to decide that Allmond, 27, of Smithfield, acted in self-defense March 10 when she grabbed a steak knife from a bedroom closet and stabbed Colbert in the chest.
An Isle of Wight County grand jury indicted Allmond on May 9 on one count of murder.
According to Dr. Leah L. Bush, assistant chief medical examiner for the Tidewater area, Colbert, 33, also of Smithfield, bled to death after the knife punctured a lung and main artery in his chest. He died at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News shortly after the stabbing.
Allmond, who had been a friend of Colbert's wife, Stacy, for 14 years, testified that she had offered the couple a place to stay last March when the electricity in their Jersey Park apartment had been cut off.
The night before Colbert's death, the couple accused Allmond of stealing $140 in food stamps from their belongings, and police were called to Allmond's apartment at Church Manor Apartments in Smithfield to look for the stamps.
Smithfield Police Officer A. Howell testified that when he arrived about 7 p.m. March 9, everyone was calm.
``At the time when the food stamps had been taken, there was no one there who saw anyone take them. So there was nothing I could do,'' Howell explained.
The next day, March 10, the argument resurfaced when the couple returned to Allmond's apartment to collect their belongings.
Allmond said Tommy Colbert was carrying some things to their car when Stacy Colbert, 23, confronted her again about the missing food stamps.
``I asked her why she'd take the stamps,'' Stacy Colbert testified, ``and it flared up again, and I pushed her into the bedroom.
``We got into a fight on the bed. It was a wrestling match. My husband was standing in the living room just watching us. And we stopped.''
Stacy Colbert testified that she was ready to leave at that point but that her husband then entered the bedroom and said, ``I guess I'm going to have to beat her ass myself.''
At that point, Allmond testified, Tommy Colbert hit her in the jaw with his fist.
``I jumped across the bed and grabbed my knife from a closet, and he came at me again. I got the knife to scare him, but he wasn't scared,'' she said.
Stacy Colbert testified that her husband did not hit Allmond. She said that after her husband had been stabbed, he came out of the bedroom cursing Allmond and holding his right shoulder.
``I went across the street for help,'' she said. ``The last thing I heard him say was, `She stabbed me.' ''
Commonwealth's Attorney W. Parker Councill argued: ``This was an intentional act - not necessarily to kill him. But the point is, there were other things she could have done besides this.''
Allmond testified, ``I had no intentions of hurting anyone.''
KEYWORDS: MURDER TRIAL CIRCUIT COURT
by CNB