THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 11, 1995 TAG: 9504110324
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
The Elizabeth City man charged with killing his girlfriend at a North Carolina convenience store March 8 pleaded guilty in Norfolk Circuit Court on Monday to stealing a friend's car the night of the murder.
Richard S. ``Ricky'' Hogarth, 30, was convicted of grand larceny under a plea agreement. He had originally been charged with robbery, abduction and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, said Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Catherine Dodson.
Hogarth was sentenced to five years in prison, which was suspended on the condition of a six-month active sentence in the Norfolk City Jail.
North Carolina prosecutors, awaiting the chance to return Hogarth to Elizabeth City on the murder charges, said they expect he will spend about two more months in jail before they can retrieve him.
Hogarth stole the car, a 1989 Acura Legend, from the Ocean View area of Norfolk about an hour after his girlfriend was shot to death and her step-grandfather was wounded in a convenience store parking lot on U.S. 17 just north of Elizabeth City.
Killed was 24-year-old Tracy Dawn Crafton of Shiloh in Camden County. She had arranged to be picked up by her grandparents, telling them that Hogarth had been abusing her. She and her step-grandfather, 47-year-old Ron Revering of Virginia Beach, were shot moments after she left Hogarth's truck for her grandparents' van.
The Elizabeth City shootings and Norfolk car theft kicked off a five-day interstate search for Hogarth that ended March 13 when police spotted him in the stolen car in Suffolk. After a chase along Route 13, he was arrested in Virginia Beach.
Pasquotank County Sheriff Randy Cartwright said after the arrest that Hogarth had confessed to the shooting. Officials later recovered an automatic handgun that Hogarth had thrown from the car window during the chase.
Despite North Carolina officials' wish to proceed with the murder charges first, Virginia prosecutors chose to address the charges stemming from the car theft.
Mike Johnson, an assistant district attorney in North Carolina's seven-county 1st Judicial District, said officials will wait for Hogarth's jail term to expire because any other interstate procedures to pick him up would take longer than the sentence.
Hogarth has told officials he will not fight extradition to North Carolina when the time comes.
``He's ready to go,'' said Norfolk attorney Michael J. Woods, appointed by the court to represent Hogarth in Virginia. ``He just wants to get it over with and get down there and get it resolved.''
Johnson said the delay caused by the Virginia case should not have a significant effect on the pending murder charges.
KEYWORDS: GRAND LARCENCY GUILTY PLEA by CNB