THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 28, 1996 TAG: 9606280488
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: EASTON, MD. LENGTH: 35 lines
In the first day of a sentencing hearing for a North Carolina man who has confessed to killing a Maryland state trooper, jurors heard a tape of the trooper's anguished partner calling for help as the trooper lay dying.
``Officer shot! Officer shot! Helicopter if possible!'' Trooper Dennis Lord screamed on the tape played Wednesday in the first day of testimony in the hearing to decide if Ivan Lovell will be sentenced to death for killing Trooper Edward A. Plank Jr.
A helicopter was in the air within a minute, but Lord testified that when he got to Plank's body, he couldn't find a pulse or detect any breathing.
Lord sat on the witness stand as the tape played. Across from him, Plank's parents and widow bowed their heads. Plank's widow, Lori Plank, is expected to testify.
Lovell, 25, of Manteo, pleaded guilty to killing Plank during a traffic stop in Somerset County last October. Lovell and his cousin, William Lynch, were carrying cocaine from New York to North Carolina when they were stopped.
Lynch, the driver of the car, faces federal murder charges and is scheduled to go on trial later this year. He is not expected to face the death penalty.
Lovell did not undergo a trial because he pleaded guilty to shooting Plank in the face. But a jury will decide whether he will spend his life in prison or be executed.
After brief opening statements from both sides Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors called several witnesses including Lord, Maryland chief medical examiner Dr. John Smialek, and a North Carolina woman who testified she accompanied Lovell and Lynch to New York to go shopping and buy drugs but returned early with a friend because she had to work. by CNB