THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 3, 1995 TAG: 9508030468
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 144 lines
When Cotrina Young and Lakisha Forrest heard the doorbell ring in their friend's apartment, they walked to the living room window to look for a familiar car in the parking lot below.
Standing almost shoulder to shoulder, they peered through the blinds. Young felt a sudden sharp pain in her right cheek.
Young touched her wet cheek and saw blood. ``I've been shot,'' she screamed, turning to her childhood friend for help.
But Forrest - slumped in a corner, bloodied and in shock - could only repeat, ``He saw me. Why did he shoot me?''
``It was so much blood,'' Young recalled in an emotional interview Wednesday in the lobby of Chesapeake Circuit Court. ``She was dying. . . . She was dying.''
On Wednesday, a jury convicted Aaron Hines - the man who fired the errant shot on June 25, 1994 - of second-degree murder, malicious wounding and two firearms charges.
The panel of seven men and five women also recommended a prison sentence of 29 years for the shooting that wounded Young, now 21, and killed Forrest, an 18-year-old dean's list student at Norfolk State University.
``It's hard, it's real hard because she's my only . . .,'' said Patricia Forrest, her voice faltering as she tried to talk about her daughter. ``I'm trying to pick up the pieces - but it's real hard.
``They said if she had lived, she would have been a vegetable,'' Forrest said as she waited for the verdict.
``We were very proud of her.''
Forrest, a graduate of Norfolk's Lake Taylor High School, was the first in her family to attend college. She had hoped to study criminal law.
At NSU, she had received a scholarship and was hoping to major in sociology, her mother said.
Prosecuting and defense attorneys agreed that it was a bizarre twist of fate that directed the single bullet through the heads of two women and into an apartment wall.
They also agreed that Hines, driving with his pregnant fiancee, fired only one shot upward from the TEC-9 he kept hidden in the back of his Mitsubishi Galant.
But the two sides differed in explaining why the shot was fired - and the bullet's intended target.
Earlier that day, Hines had a quarrel with Leardrew ``Lee-Lee'' Johnson in another part of the city, witnesses said. The feud later erupted in gunfire after the two showed up in the parking lot of Pleasant Park Apartments.
Prosecution witnesses said Hines intended to kill Johnson, who ran from his friend's car in the parking lot and into the apartment building, where he rang the doorbell of the apartment where Young and Forrest were visiting that evening.
Hines aimed his TEC-9 at Johnson but missed, hitting the two women instead.
``Just because he didn't kill his intended victim . . . doesn't mean that he's not guilty of murder and malicious wounding,'' said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Nancy Parr. ``All they were doing was looking out a window.''
``The defendant was going to show (Johnson) you're not going to get the last word on me,'' Parr said. ``This was a premeditated, malicious, armed fire.
``This is not self-defense, because no one else had a gun. You have one bullet - a 9 mm bullet consistent with being fired from this gun.''
During their investigation, police found two shell casings in the parking lot - a new casing consistent with a bullet from a TEC-9 and an old rusted casing.
``It had nothing to do with this case,'' Parr said of the rusted casing, telling jurors that police only included it in their findings to be thorough.
No other casings and no damage from gunfire to any of the cars were found in the parking lot. No other gun was found at the scene.
But defense attorney Andrew Sacks said his client was only trying to defend himself from Johnson.
``Wouldn't he have done a better job of trying to kill Lee-Lee than that?'' Sacks argued. ``He returned fire in self-defense. . . . He is innocent.''
Sacks told jurors that although police could find no evidence of another gun, several prosecution and defense witnesses testified that they heard several shots fired outside the apartments.
``The whole case is built on the belief that (Hines) fired the first shot,'' Sacks said. ``He was the victim of an unjustified attack.
``Lee-Lee had that gun, and he pointed it at him that day.''
After nearly a week of testimony, Hines testified as the last witness for his defense. He told jurors Johnson had threatened him with a gun earlier during a fight. The two later crossed paths as Hines went to the apartment complex in search of his daughter.
``I didn't know what he had on his mind after he pulled a gun on me,'' Hines said.
Hines testified that he saw Johnson run into the apartment building and lean out a hallway window with a gun aimed at his car.
``Lee-Lee shot at us on an angle from the air,'' said Hines. Another car leaving the complex was blocking him in, preventing him from driving away from the building, he said.
In order to deter him from shooting any more, Hines said, he fired the gun once in the air.
``I aimed at no one,'' Hines testified. ``I only fired one shot - I'm certain.''
Hines said he and his fiancee then drove to a nearby 7-Eleven, where they stopped to look for bullet holes in his car. The car was not damaged, so the couple went for a drive on the Virginia Beach tourist strip and then had dinner at Fuddrucker's restaurant on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
``I had no idea at all,'' Hines said. ``I never intended to hurt anyone.''
Witnesses at the scene of the shooting had identified Hines as the suspect, and police contacted his parents to help find him.
During an interview with police, Hines denied having any confrontation with Johnson and any knowledge of a shooting. He later changed his story. Police also found his gun in the fireplace of his brother's home.
Hines is also facing charges for cocaine trafficking, auto theft and escape in North Carolina after he fled from police who had arrested him on a drug-dealing charge on Dec. 1, 1994. Hines left two battered police cars in his wake as he fled to Virginia in a stolen truck, then abandoned it on a rural highway.
While police launched a search for him, he was caught by a Suffolk farmer who saw him wandering in the woodlands, handcuffed. The farmer held him at gunpoint while a friend flagged down the police. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff photos
MISTAKEN VICTIMS
On June 25, 1994, childhood friends Lakisha Forrest and Cotrina
Young were standing at a window. Seconds later, there was shooting
and blood.
MOTHER MOURNS
"I'm trying to pick up the pieces - but it's real hard," said
Patricia Forrest, holding a picture of her daughter Lakisha.
SURVIVOR REMEMBERS
"It was so much blood. She was dying...She was dying," Cotrina Young
said of her friend.
KEYWORDS: CONVICTION MURDER SHOOTING by CNB