THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270272
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 74 lines
More than a dozen relatives and friends of a girl fatally stabbed at a slumber party last week looked on Monday as a judge refused to grant bail for the 19-year-old man accused in her death.
Juvenile Court Judge Frederick H. Creekmore ordered that Curtis Lee White II remain in jail without bail on one charge of capital murder, three counts of malicious wounding, one count each of rape and attempted rape, two counts of sodomy and one count each of abduction and burglary. White is being held in the Chesapeake Jail.
Family and friends of the 17-year-old victim, Michelle Harper, took up the entire back row of the courtroom.
``We're here because we didn't want him to get a bond,'' Tammy Harper Stephenson, Harper's aunt, said after the hearing.
Stephenson and her group formed a circle and prayed together under the skylights outside the courtroom Monday as they waited for the proceedings to begin. Several sobbed. Then they broke into smaller groups and, with arms wrapped around one another, walked toward the courtroom.
Inside, White showed little emotion during the brief hearing. As he left, he turned to look at the audience. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 17.
His family declined to be interviewed after court.
White appeared in Juvenile Court because the victim was a juvenile.
White's neighbors and friends have said the accusations against him seem out of character. He has declined to be interviewed.
Several of Harper's relatives hugged one another and cried outside the courthouse after the hearing.
``We do not have any hatred for his family, because God does not put hatred in our hearts,'' Stephenson said in an interview, fighting back tears. ``But my niece is gone, and I hurt so bad. We want him to pay. . . .''
Harper, who would have been a senior at Deep Creek High School, was attending the slumber party in the Camelot neighborhood. It was supposed to be a back-to-school get-together.
The rampage at the home in the 3200 block of Bruno Court was part of a domestic dispute, police have said. Friends said White and his girlfriend had dated for about four years, but White had recently learned that his girlfriend planned to break up with him. His girlfriend was one of the teen-agers stabbed at the slumber party.
Authorities allege that White broke into the home of his estranged girlfriend about 4 a.m. Friday through a rear window. He was armed with a kitchen knife when he approached two girls watching television in a downstairs den, ordered them to take off their clothes and told them he was going to rape them, police said.
A teen-age boy who had been asleep upstairs came down and the intruder stabbed him. The assailant then went upstairs where two girls were sleeping and stabbed one of them. The other escaped unharmed, police said.
White was arrested across the street, minutes after the attack, police said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT photos
The Virginian-Pilot
Curtis Lee White II, 19, left, returns to jail Monday after being
arraigned on charges of capital murder and other crimes, in
connection with stabbings at a Chesapeake slumber party Friday.
Relatives and friends of slaying victim Michelle Harper, 17,
attended the hearing. Some formed a circle and prayed together
outside the courtroom before the proceedings.
``We do not have any hatred for his family, because God does not put
hatred in our hearts. But my niece is gone, and I hurt so bad. We
want him to pay . . . .''
Tammy Harper Stephenson,
the victim's aunt
KEYWORDS: STABBING MURDER by CNB