THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 19, 1995 TAG: 9508190043
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Fifteen years ago, Charles Poole stood on the bank of a Greenwich Road borrow-pit lake and watched as his best friend was bludgeoned to death and dumped in the water.
On Friday, Poole was again at the man-made lake - dead of an apparent suicide.
A case of conspiracy and betrayal apparently had come full circle when detectives found Poole, 34, dead in his car. He was one of four defendants charged with murder long ago.
An 18-year-old, fresh-faced sailor in 1979, Poole had lured Jeffrey Ellis into a trap. The trap was supposed to end with a beating that would teach Ellis a lesson: Stop abusing his estranged wife. But Ellis - Poole's shipmate, longtime friend and one-time romantic rival - was killed.
Poole, a quiet teen with close-cropped red hair, was convicted for his part in the slaying and sentenced to 10 years in prison Jan. 23, 1980.
Police said that Poole, despondent and threatening suicide, left his wife, young child and his Chesapeake home Thursday night. He had apparently been depressed for some time.
Detectives suspect he took his own life because there were no outward signs of violence. Tests to confirm that have not been finished.
It was a quiet end for someone who was once a central figure in a celebrated murder trial.
According to court records and news reports, this is what happened:
Poole and two others planned to beat Ellis because they believed Ellis, 18, was mistreating his estranged wife, also 18. The wife, Theresa Ellis, wanted her husband dead, but the conspirators believed a beating would suffice, records show.
Poole and Theresa Ellis were high-school sweethearts and were once engaged. She jilted Poole and, just four days later, married Ellis.
The beating turned deadly when Ellis made a comment that infuriated his brother-in-law, Chris Trager, one of the people who was to dole out the beating. Trager smashed Ellis' skull and sank him in the lake.
Although Poole faced life in prison, a jury convicted the teenager of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced him to 10 years. The judge called the jury's decisions ``lenient.''
A second conspirator, Hugh Henretta, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and testify against the others.
Theresa Ellis, the estranged wife who police suspected had ordered the murder, was freed after prosecutors dropped the charges. Poole would not testify against her. She reportedly remarried and moved to Richmond.
Chris Trager, Theresa Ellis' brother, eluded police for nearly three years before his capture in California. He pleaded guilty to murder.
It has been 15 years since Poole's life derailed, barely a year into adulthood. And, by all accounts, his life had been uneventful since.
The one-time Navy airman apprentice was released from a state prison in late 1983 after serving three years of his 10-year sentence. He was released from parole three years later. A prison spokeswoman said Poole fully satisfied the terms of his conviction.
He had apparently stayed out of trouble since his release.
His family declined to talk about his death.
KEYWORDS: SUICIDE DEATH by CNB