THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 4, 1997 TAG: 9701040296
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 49 lines
As hearings approach for two teen-age boys arrested in the slaying of a bookstore clerk, court documents paint a clearer picture of the incidents leading to the death of Margaret M. ``Peggy'' Lilley a week before Christmas.
June D. Sykes and George Fenner, both 15, told police that they had participated in Lilley's death, according to a search warrant on file in Circuit Court.
Lilley, 55, was found dead at The Bookhaven in the Suffolk Plaza Shopping Center about 4:15 p.m. Dec. 18. Her throat had been cut, court papers showed.
Sykes, an eighth-grader at John Yeates Middle School, also admitted that he had stolen magazines from the store in the strip shopping center on North Main Street a few days earlier.
Police searched the Sykes' home in the 2200 block of East Washington St. and recovered a pair of dark pants and white socks that Sykes claimed he was wearing at the time of Lilley's death.
The shop's video camera captured the scene on tape. The security system had been installed about a year ago after a robbery.
Police called the incident a ``brutal, senseless act'' but have released few details.
Lilley, who had worked at the store for at least 10 years, was in the shop alone when the teens came in late in the afternoon of Dec. 18. Not long after they left, a man came in and found her body on the floor at the back of the store, between shelves of books.
After an investigation, police said shopping center workers and patrons had seen the boys hanging around for two days and wearing the same clothes. Witnesses also told police they saw the boys run from the store, then suddenly slow to a fast-paced walk just after Lilley was killed.
Sykes and Fenner, a ninth-grader at Nansemond River High School, were arrested the next day on one charge each of first degree murder, breaking and entering, and cut, stab or wound.
They were arraigned Dec. 20 and are being held without bond in Tidewater Detention Home in Chesapeake.
Both requested court-appointed attorneys. Sykes is being represented by Johnnie E. Mizelle, who has a private practice in Suffolk. Fenner is being represented by Timothy Miller and John Lauterbach of the Suffolk public defender's office.
Preliminary hearings before Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Alfreda Talton-Harris are scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday.
As a result of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 1996, defendants 14 or older are routinely tried as adults for serious crimes such as murder.
KEYWORDS: MURDER JUVENILE TEENAGER STABBING ARREST