DATE: Tuesday, June 3, 1997                 TAG: 9706030268

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL  

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   99 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: ***************************************************************** Tom Watkins is a defense attorney for Zackary Anthony Carter of Virginia Beach. Watkins' last name was wrong in a story Tuesday about Carter's murder trial. Correction published Wednesday, June 4, 1997. ***************************************************************** COURTROOM SEES DEFENDANT'S TEARS AND HOSTILE SKETCH

Zackary Anthony Carter took the witness stand in his first-degree murder trial on Monday in a final, tearful effort to convince jurors that he shot and killed his half sister, Cierra, by accident last September.

``I didn't mean to hurt her,'' Carter, 15, told the jury shortly after noon during the third and final day of testimony in the trial. ``I didn't mean to pull the trigger.''

Carter made his plea moments after prosecutors closed their case against him following 2 1/2 days of testimony.

The defense put on its entire case Monday. Jurors will begin deliberating this morning.

Carter's is the first murder trial at the Beach under a new state statute that automatically transfers juveniles to Circuit Court to be tried as adults. Carter faces a life sentence if convicted.

But he also could be sentenced as a juvenile. Sentencing will be left up to Circuit Judge Frederick B. Lowe under the requirements of the new statute.

Prosecutors believe Carter disliked his half sister and was afraid that recent problems at school might result in his return to Staunton to live with his mother.

When the girl returned home from school on Sept. 10 and bragged of her school successes, Carter set about to kill her with his father's shotgun, prosecutors said.

``All the evidence in this case is consistent with one thing,'' prosecutor Bob Dautrich told the jury in his closing argument. ``This was an intentional, malicious premeditated act.''

Defense attorney Tom Watson called the shooting ``a tragic accident that happened'' without any conscious effort on Carter's part.

``He was playing with that gun and it went off,'' Watson said during his closing.

Carter, who cried off and on during an hour of testimony, claimed his finger ``snagged on the trigger'' of his father's 20-gauge shotgun on the afternoon of Sept. 10, 1996, as he sat with his 8-year-old sister in his bedroom at their home in the Ocean Lakes subdivision.

Carter was sitting on his bed, he testified, and Cierra was sitting on a beanbag chair at the foot of the bed. Cierra's head rested on a pillow propped against Carter's knee.

Carter said he was playing with the etchings along the side of the gun when he leaned back and his finger accidentally pulled the trigger. The gun went off, Carter said, striking his sister in the temple.

Following the shooting, Carter testified, he didn't go or call for help because ``I was scared and I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what was going on,'' Carter said.

Prosecutors, though, showed Monday that Carter harbored ill will toward his sister for at least several days before the shooting, which occurred when both were home alone after the school day was over.

Betty K. Marconi, an art teacher at Princess Anne Middle School where Carter was a student, testified that Carter completed an art assignment for her class sometime during the week before the shooting. The drawing shows the Carter family, with Carter holding a knife over the head of Cierra.

``The defendant did not like Cierra Carter,'' said prosecutor Afshin Farashahi as he displayed the drawing on an overhead projector for the jury. ``There is the defendant, there is the knife and there is Cierra's head.''

Prosecutors also grilled Carter on how much his story had changed since Carter gave a statement to police on the day after the shooting.

During that statement he admitted that it was no accident that he pointed the shotgun at his sister's head. He shot Cierra, Carter told investigator Doug Zebley on Sept. 11, without any clear motive in mind.

``I just did it,'' Carter told Zebley.

After the shooting, Carter took off his sister's skirt and panties and dragged her into the bathroom, where he placed her body in the tub. On Monday Carter said he disrobed her to check her pulse in her leg.

Carter made a half-hearted effort to clean up the murder scene with towels, cleanser, bleach and a bug cleaner, but eventually decided there was too much blood and locked the door to his room instead.

When his stepmother, Traci Carter, returned home, Carter was calmly putting dishes in the dishwasher and immediately began telling lies about where his half sister was.

That kind of behavior made the accidental shooting theory unbelievable, Farashahi said.

``This is a person who says he just shot his sister by accident, and he is putting dishes in a dishwasher?'' said Farashahi in his closing arguments. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

Zackary Anthony Carter, 15, turns to talk with one of his attorneys

Monday during his trial in Virginia Beach for the murder of his half

sister, Cierra.

VICKI CRONIS photos/The Virginian-Pilot

The controversial sketch done by Zackary in school shows the Carter

family with ``me'' holding a dagger pointed at Cierra's head. KEYWORDS: TESTIMONY MURDER TRIAL

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