THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080374
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Jurors took about an hour to convict a 17-year-old for his role in the cinder-block beating death of a Norfolk man he did not know.
The verdict came after a four-day trial in which jurors repeatedly saw the bloodstained, 62-pound cinder block used in the murder and a plaster cast of the nearly three-inch indentation in the ground that the victim's head left after it was pounded.
The jurors were not allowed to hear a statement that the defendant, Neil V. Bates Jr., made to police earlier, admitting his role in the killing of William A. Jones Jr.
Circuit Judge Luther C. Edmonds will sentence Bates April 9. Bates faces a possible life term in prison for first-degree murder.
The victim's father, William Jones Sr., 74, watched the trial from a wheelchair in a courtroom aisle. Beside him sat Martha Williams, the victim's stepmother.
Jones, 43, was beaten New Year's Day 1995 and died the following day, becoming Norfolk's first homicide victim of 1995.
For Jones' family, the case has been an endless procession of court hearings.
Two other youths have been charged in the killing. Nathaniel R. Lindsey, 20, whose nickname is Maniac, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for testifying against his co-defendants. He will be sentenced June 7 and faces up to 40 years in prison.
Lorenzo McLean, known as Pee Wee, is scheduled for a hearing in juvenile court Feb. 21 to determine whether he will be tried as an adult.
McLean, who was 17 at the time of the crime but is now 18, was charged days after the murder, but authorities had to release him after a witness got scared and prosecutors lacked evidence to proceed.
During the trial Bates' lawyer, Jennifer T. Stanton, tried to convince jurors that Bates was not at the crime scene.
``Was it Neil Bates who participated in this or was it Nathaniel Lindsey and some of his cronies who'd been snorting cocaine all day?'' she asked. ``Neil Bates was with (Lindsey) earlier that day but he wasn't with him when he killed this man.''
The incident began, Lindsey testified, when Jones looked on as McLean urinated outside. McLean accused Jones of being gay and Jones swung at him. Bates joined the fray and hit Jones. Then, together, the two dragged Jones to the ground and began beating him with the cinder block.
Prosecutor Linda Salmon held up a plaster cast of the indentation that Jones' head made in the ground where he was pounded.
``On Jan. 1, 1995, a winter day in Norfolk when the ground was hard, this indentation was made,'' she said. ``Everyone at the crime scene talked about it. They called it a hole.''
Prosecutor Lisa McKeel told the jurors that the only way they could acquit Bates would be to discount the testimony of Lindsey and a jail inmate who testified that Bates told him about committing the murder.
``Don't let Neil Bates walk away from murder,'' she said.
In a police statement read in court, Lindsey described what happened as Jones lay on the ground:
``I saw Skip (a fourth suspect who remains at large) and Neil take the cinder block and drop the cinder block on the guy's head. Then while they was still beating on the guy, throwing the bike on the guy and all this and that, Neil and Pee Wee picked up the block and dropped it on his head again. So that was two times he got hit with the cinder block in the head. Then we left.''
Lindsey told police that during the fight, McLean said, ``He already seen all of our faces. We've got to kill him.''
At one point, McLean slashed Jones' throat with a broken bottle. The youths then left to clean their shoes. At one point, they walked past the dying man on their way to buy marijuana, held a lighter to his face and watched him bleed.
KEYWORDS: MURDER ASSAULT ARREST TRIAL
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