THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 7, 1995 TAG: 9502070299
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Fateema Evans watched as her brother Reginald and his friend Howard Chapman got out of a Yellow Cab and ran into the house.
That's when she heard them say: ``We just killed a cabdriver,'' she testified Monday. They sent her outside to see if the cabdriver was dead, she said. .
He wasn't - yet.
Donald Reynolds was trying to drive away in cab No. 47 after having been shot four or five times by a gunman from the back seat. He didn't get far before the cab ran onto the curb and he slumped over.
Next to him on the seat, his log sheet listed his final fare as having begun at 11:52 p.m. at 3706 Colley Ave. He had marked 832 Smith St. as his destination, but died before he had a chance to record the arrival time.
Monday was the first day of Reginald Evans' capital murder trial in the shooting of Reynolds, 43. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty against Evans, who was 15 when the shooting occurred April 26, 1994. But Circuit Judge Charles E. Poston ruled that Evans could not be considered for the death penalty because of his age.
Chapman was convicted Jan. 9 of first-degree murder and attempted robbery. He is awaiting sentencing.
Fateema Evans, 15, testified Monday that she saw a crowd gather around the cab before police arrived and roped off the crime scene. Her brother had gone upstairs and was lying on the bed.
Minutes later, her aunt came home, and Fateema said she heard yelling. Her brother said: ``Stop playing. Give her the gun.''
Fateema testified that Chapman went to the refrigerator and gave the aunt the gun, which he pulled from a Froot Loops cereal box. Chapman then took the gun and left the house, she testified.
Reginald Evans chewed on a cross he wore around his neck during parts of his sister's testimony.
In two statements to police, he said he was sitting in the back seat of the cab. In the first statement, he denied having fired the shots, but in the second, he said that he had. Autopsy reports showed that the bullets were fired from the back seat.
On Monday, Fateema Evans testified that she saw her brother get out of the front passenger seat and Chapman get out of the back.
Jurors shuddered and family members cried when Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Lisa Caton pulled Reynolds' blood-stained shirt from a paper bag and a forensic expert pointed to the gunpowder marks surrounding the bullet holes.
In her opening statement, Caton promised jurors that they will hear Reginald Evans' confession from a tape made by police.
``He recounts that night - the last night of Mr. Reynolds' life,'' she said. ``Our job is to seek justice. That justice is to convict the defendant of the offenses of which he's charged.''
Robert Frank, one of the lawyers representing Evans, told jurors that police coerced the confession from Evans. He urged them to think about his client's age and what could have occurred during the hour and 20 minutes between Evans' two statements to police.
``They worked on him to get him to give the second statement,'' Frank said. ``What appears on the surface may not always be true.''
KEYWORDS: MURDER TRIAL CAB DRIVER JUVENILE SHOOTING by CNB