DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997               TAG: 9703010281

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   92 lines

TEENS TELL OF KNIFINGS, CHAOS AT SLUMBER PARTY A GIRL, 17, WAS KILLED IN THE AUGUST ATTACK; GRAND JURY GETS CASE.

The teen-age girl was on the phone with Curtis Lee White II, telling him she wanted to break up with him. Minutes later, she testified Friday, White crashed her slumber party. He had a knife.

And the words he spoke were chilling, she told the court:

``You never thought a crazy person could come into your house.''

In the frantic minutes that followed last August, White, 19, stabbed four people, killing a 17-year-old girl, according to testimony Friday. One of the injured was White's girlfriend.

After listening to about two hours of grisly testimony in the preliminary hearing, Juvenile Court Judge Eileen Olds sent to a grand jury multiple charges against White: one count each of capital murder, attempted rape, sodomy and burglary, and three counts of malicious wounding.

The attack occurred Aug. 23 during a back-to-school slumber party in the 3200 block of Bruno Court in the Camelot neighborhood. Michelle Harper, of the 100 block of Darius Court, a rising senior at Deep Creek High School, was killed.

White hung his head during much of the testimony Friday, his knee nervously bouncing up and down under the table where he sat. He wore a green jail-issue jumpsuit and seemed to wipe tears from his eyes several times.

Neighbors and friends of White have said the accusations against him seem out of character. His family declined to be interviewed on Friday.

About 40 people - most of them family and friends of Harper - came to watch the proceeding.

There were so many spectators that the hearing had to be moved to a larger courtroom.

The names of the youths who testified are not being used to protect their identity since one allegedly was the victim of sexual assault.

The former girlfriend, now 18, testified that she and White had dated for about four years. After he came into her house, she said, he sat down next to her and started to kiss her, then bit her on the neck. That's when she saw what looked like a steak knife in his hand.

He then ordered Harper to take off her clothes and forced her to perform oral sex, the girlfriend testified. As he did, he asked another boy in the room if he wanted to do the same thing. After Harper pushed away from him, he turned to his girlfriend and tried to have sex with her, she testified. He cut the telephone cord and tied her up with it.

Then he turned back to Harper and stabbed her several times in the chest, the girlfriend said. She testified that she could see tears in White's eyes.

``She was praying to God,'' the girl testified of Harper. ``She asked the Lord to help her. He said there was no God and started talking about the devil.''

When the girlfriend begged White to stop hurting Harper, he stabbed the girlfriend, she testified.

The girl said she then woke her brother, who was asleep in another room. Then she ran out to get White's parents at their house nearby.

According to the brother's version of events, he awoke to find his sister and Harper in his room bleeding from their stab wounds.

``I was like in a daze. . . I was half asleep,'' he testified.

White, who had been his friend for about a dozen years, then walked in and told him to leave, but ordered the girls to stay. White and the brother fought, and White stabbed him in the back of the neck, the brother testified.

The two struggled all the way down the stairs. White stabbed him one more time along the way, and twice in the kitchen, the brother testified.

Another sister tried to break up the fight by getting between the two men in the kitchen. She also suffered a stab wound before White pushed her out of the way, the brother testified.

White then chased the brother through the dining room and up the stairs. The brother threw a chair at White and slammed his bedroom door to keep White out of the room. But White kicked the bedroom door off the hinges and came in, the brother testified.

At one point, the brother had control of White, and White said: ``I'm tired, let me go.'' If he would, White said, he'd leave. But when the brother let him go, the two started fighting again, the brother testified.

The brother said he then saw White's mother come into the house. White dragged the brother into another bedroom and tried to barricade the door shut. That's when White's father arrived, and the terror ended.

The sister who tried to break up the fight testified that she had known White since she was a baby. But that night he seemed different, she said.

``He had this look in his eye. . . .'' she testified. ``He wouldn't say nothing when I asked him what was wrong. I ain't never seen him like that.''

Outside, after the hearing, family and friends gathered, hugged and cried together.

``It's been a long, hard wait,'' said Lola Miles, Michelle Harper's aunt.

``It was very difficult listening to all of the details. Even though we're hurting, so are (White's family members). We believe in God, and we believe in miracles. We know he has the final decision.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot

Curtis Lee White II, the defendant, is escorted into court. KEYWORDS: JUVENILE HEARING STABBING MURDER SEX CRIME

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