THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 12, 1995 TAG: 9507120370
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
When Michael D. Clagett was 18 years old, he married his pregnant 14-year-old girlfriend, then spent the next few months terrorizing her, according to court testimony Tuesday.
Clagett's ex-wife said he kicked her down a flight of stairs when she was pregnant, woke her up every day by burning her leg with a cigarette, and tried to rape her by throwing her to the kitchen floor and stabbing her with a fork.
Catherine K. Chalmers, now 31, testified for the prosecution in the sentencing phase of Clagett's capital murder trial. Clagett stared at his ex-wife during most of her testimony but showed no other reaction.
Chalmers said she met Clagett in 1978 when she was 14 and had just moved to Ohio. Within a year, she was pregnant and Clagett's mother forced them to get married, she said.
The Clagetts lived together only a few months. In that time, Chalmers testified:
Clagett shoved her down a flight of stairs when she was four months pregnant. When she landed at the bottom, he laughed.
When she was in labor at the hospital, Clagett was getting high on marijuana in the bathroom. Later, he refused to hold the infant, unhappy that it was a boy.
Two weeks later, Clagett came home stoned and demanded sex. His wife refused, saying she was still recovering from her Caesarian section. He yelled, ``You're mine. I can have it whenever I want it.'' He threw her to the floor, pulled off her clothes and stabbed her in the thigh with a fork. She hit him in the crotch and ran away.
Almost every day for about three months, Clagett woke his wife by burning her on the leg with a cigarette. Chalmers showed the jury photos of burn scars on both legs.
One day, when Clagett found his wife asleep on the floor in the baby's room, he kicked her in the abdomen, shoulders and legs. Then he threw a day-bed on top of her and jumped up and down on it.
Chalmers ran out of the house, but Clagett caught her and dragged her home by the hair. When neighbors asked what was wrong, Clagett replied, ``I'm just taking care of the slut. Don't worry about it.''
Another day, Clagett kicked his wife in the mouth, knocking out a tooth.
Chalmers said she endured those stormy months without telling police or doctors. She was just 15 years old, had no car, no phone and no friends, she said. ``I thought I was doing something wrong,'' she testified.
She divorced Clagett in 1991 so she could remarry.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING TRIAL by CNB