DATE: Wednesday, May 21, 1997               TAG: 9705210559

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   42 lines

JURY PROPOSES LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE FOR TEEN SLAYER

Hours after an 18-year-old was sentenced to death Tuesday, a Circuit Court jury recommended that another Norfolk teen-ager be sent to prison for life without parole for the Jan. 1, 1995, murder of William A. Jones Jr.

Lorenzo McLean, who was 17 when he killed Jones, was convicted last week of capital murder.

Prosecutor Lisa McKeel said the jury was instructed that a life sentence would mean no parole, but eight members still voted for the death penalty, perhaps because of the viciousness of the crime.

McLean, known as ``Pee Wee,'' had been convicted previously of violent crimes committed after the capital murder occurred. He was convicted of misdemeanor assault and battery for repeatedly stabbing a man and of robbery and malicious wounding, McKeel said.

A 17-year-old co-defendant, Neil V. Bates Jr., was sentenced in April 1996 to life. Neither Bates nor McLean will be eligible for parole because the crime was committed on Jan. 1, 1995, the day Virginia's no-parole policy went into effect. Jones died the next day.

A third defendant, Nathaniel R. Lindsey, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

According to earlier testimony, the crime began when Jones looked on as McLean urinated in the 1300 block of Johnstons Road. McLean then accused Jones of being gay and Jones swung at him. Bates joined the fray and hit Jones. Then the two dragged Jones to the ground and beat him with a cinder block, dropping it on his face six or seven times.

At one point, McLean slashed Jones' throat with a broken bottle, according to testimony. Later, they walked past the dying man on their way to buy marijuana, held a lighter to his face and watched him bleed. McLean is set to be sentenced June 11.

Chauncey Jackson, barely 16 when he gunned down Ronald G. Bonney Jr. in 1994, was sentenced to death Tuesday. Story, Page A1. KEYWORDS: MURDER TEENAGER JUVENILE SENTENCING LIFE

WITHOUT PAROLE

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