DATE: Thursday, July 24, 1997               TAG: 9707240434

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

TIMELINE - JOSEPH ROGER O'DELL

Joseph Roger O'Dell's case has generated 12 years of appeals and

unprecedented international attention. Some of the details of his

life of crime and his fight for survival:

1965

A Roanoke native who grew up in Norfolk's Ocean View, O'Dell had

served time in prison and was sentenced to 20 years for killing a

fellow inmate.

1975

Sentenced in Florida to 114 years for robbery, assault and

abduction of a 23-year-old Zippy Mart clerk, Donna Doyle. Doyle

testified he put a gun to her head, beat her with it and threatened

to rape her. In a recent interview, Doyle described herself as lucky

to be alive and added: ``If death penalty opponents are looking for

a poster boy for their cause, they sure picked the wrong guy.''

1985

On parole from Florida, O'Dell was arrested for the rape and

murder of Helen Schartner in Virginia Beach.

1986

Representing himself in one of the most expensive trials of its

time, O'Dell appeared in court 29 times and filed 179 motions before

the trial even began. The price tag for taxpayers: About $250,000.

1988

O'Dell writes to a millionaire philanthropist saying he needs

money to pay for DNA testing to prove his innocence.

1989

Citing the circumstantial nature of the case, now-retired Circuit

Judge H. Calvin Spain allows O'Dell to use new DNA technology to

test the bloody clothing.

Two blood stains found on O'Dell's clothes were tested for DNA.

Blood from one stain did not match O'Dell's or Schartner's. The

second, originally regarded as a match with Schartner's blood, is in

dispute because the testing method has been discarded as unreliable.

1991

U.S. Supreme Court upholds his conviction but suggested a lower

court consider the case because ``evidence raises serious questions

about whether he was guilty of the charged crime . . . or capable

of representing himself.''

1992

A U.S. District Court judge ruled that O'Dell should get a new

sentencing based on the idea that criminal defendants have the right

to counteract prosecutorial claims of future dangerousness with

information about their ineligibility for parole.

1996

In July, Sister Helen Prejean steps forward to support O'Dell.

The U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit rejects O'Dell's claim that

he had new DNA evidence that proves his innocence and split 7 to 6

on the truth-in-sentencing idea.

In November, an Italian protest begins bubbling.

Pope John Paul II asks for clemency for O'Dell.

In December, The U.S. Supreme Court stayed O'Dell's Dec. 18

execution in order to fully explore a legal point in the case.

1997

June 19

U.S. Supreme Court rules (5-4) that O'Dell got a fair trial and

should die for his crime.

July

The petition for clemency to the governor points to the fact that

O'Dell's jury was not told he would never be eligible for parole if

sentenced to life.

Prejean, author of the book-turned-movie ``Dead Man Walking,''

speaks up on O'Dell's behalf.

This week

MONDAY

Pleading for O'Dell's life, Palermo mayor Leoluca Orlando meets

with an aide to the governor.

TUESDAY

``I do not know what he has done to be condemned to death. All I

know is that he is a child of God,'' writes Mother Teresa of

Calcutta in an appeal to the governor.

WEDNESDAY

O'Dell marries Lori Urs, his longtime advocate. Hours later he is

executed. KEYWORDS: CHRONOLOGY

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