THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 20, 1996 TAG: 9607200206
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 50 lines
After hearing three witnesses identify him as the person who shot and killed Vernon Lee Jones with an assault rifle, Antonio L. Jefferson pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and a firearm charge Friday morning.
The plea, which leads to conviction without admitting guilt, came at the beginning of the second day of a jury trial that was expected to continue beyond Friday.
Jefferson, 23, was taken to Western Tidewater Regional Jail, where he is being held without bail. A pre-sentence report is due Sept. 5.
He faces 20 years to life in prison on the murder charge and a mandatory three years in prison for use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
Prosecutors F. Jefferson James and Marilyn A. Sallee were prepared to call a long list of witnesses, including many who saw the shooting.
Jones, 40, was killed Sept. 18, 1994, as he stood in front of a house in the 2100 block of Kentucky Ave. Jefferson, formerly of the 400 block of Ben St., was arrested a week later after turning himself in at police headquarters.
``The evidence was he got out of a hatchback of a small, white station wagon and began shooting Jones, who was standing next to a car with a 6-month-old baby strapped in a car seat,'' said James after the trial ended.
When the first shots were fired , Jones told a woman in the car to get the baby and get down, then turned to shield them, said James, an assistant commonwealth's attorney.
Jones was shot at least six times with an AK-47 assault rifle, James said. The fatal bullet hit him in the back and severed an artery in his abdomen; other bullets broke both his thigh bones and shattered part of his pelvis, he said.
The motive for the shooting is still unknown.
The weapon was never recovered, but shell casings from the scene were consistent with an AK-47, James said. He showed a similar rifle to witnesses who said it looked like the one the defendant used.
Public defender Timothy Miller and his co-counsel, Patricia Cannon, plan to call several witnesses at the sentencing hearing before Judge E. Everett Bagnell.
The trial had been continued several times because Jefferson, who had been released from jail on $50,000 bond, had disappeared. In a separate matter, Jefferson is scheduled to be tried Aug. 5 on a hit-and-run charge stemming from a June 25, 1995, accident.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING ASSAULT RIFLE TRIAL by CNB