
DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 1997              TAG: 9708190260

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK,STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   94 lines

TEEN GUILTY OF KILLING HALF SISTER BOY, 15, COULD GET 43 YEARS IN PRISON

After two trials that required more than 10 days in court, 15-year-old Zackary Anthony Carter was convicted Monday of second-degree murder for the shotgun slaying of his half-sister last September.

Carter, the first teen-ager in Virginia Beach to be tried for murder under a new get-tough-on-juveniles statute, listened calmly to the jury's verdict as he stood between his attorneys, Melinda Glaubke and Tom Watkins. The jury also convicted Carter of a weapons violation.

Circuit Judge Frederick B. Lowe will sentence Carter Oct. 22. He could be sentenced to up to 43 years in prison.

It was the second time that a jury has deliberated Carter's fate. In the first trial, Lowe declared a mistrial June 6 after a juror made improper communications with an attorney not involved in the case. The jury in that case was about to begin its fourth day of deliberation - one of the longest in the city's history - when the mistrial was declared.

Carter used his father's 20-gauge shotgun Sept. 10 to shoot 8-year-old Cierra Rose Carter once in the head while the two children were home alone in the Virginia Beach subdivision of Ocean Lakes. Carter was 14 at the time.

Prosecutors believe he committed the crime out of a twisted sibling rivalry turned pathological. Carter testified during both trials that he shot his half-sister accidentally while playing with his father's shotgun.

But neither story explains why the tragedy occurred, according to Carter's grandfather, Roger Austin.

Austin, the father of Carter's biological mother, blamed the boy's father, Zackery C. Carter, for allowing his son easy access to the murder weapon.

``How can the prosecution go after a child and let the father get off scot-free?'' Austin said Monday outside the courtroom after the verdict. ``He should have been indicted.''

Austin, who attended every day of both trials, said he warned the father to lock up all of his weapons when his son came to live with him in Virginia Beach in May. Zackery Carter promised to do so, Austin said.

``If he had done anything he said he was going to do, this would not have happened,'' Austin said.

Austin also blamed police for interrogating his grandson without an attorney present on the day after the shooting. During the police interview, which was videotaped and shown at both trials, Carter admitted that the shooting was not accidental.

Carter gave the interview after spending the previous 24 hours in a treehouse in a woods behind the subdivision where he lived. He hid out there after running away from home following the shooting.

``If anybody can look at that confession and say that is how we are going to treat our children, then God help us, we are in trouble,'' Austin said.

Carter's videotaped confession was the strongest piece of evidence against him. But prosecutors also produced a school drawing made by Carter days before the shooting that showed him holding a knife above Cierra's head. The drawing, prosecutors said, proved that Carter had malice for his half-sister.

But Carter testified during both trials that he loved her and did not intentionally hurt her.

Carter said he was playing with the shotgun in his bedroom before Cierra got home from school Sept. 10. When Cierra went to his room and sat at the foot of his bed, Carter testified, she was accidentally shot when he leaned back on the bed and ``snagged'' the trigger with his finger.

Carter ran away from home after his stepmother returned from work.

A neighbor, summoned to the house by Carter's stepmother, discovered Cierra's body in the bathtub of an upstairs bathroom. Her skirt and panties had been removed.

When police investigators arrived, they found the door and walls of Carter's bedroom splattered with blood. Blood stains also were found in the hallway, made when Carter dragged Cierra's body to the bathroom.

Carter's case was automatically transferred to adult court under a statute that took effect in July 1996. The statute requires that juveniles 14 and older be treated as adults when charged with murder, rape or maiming.

The statute does retain elements of the juvenile law that it replaced, according to prosecutors.

It requires that the trial judge sentence the defendant. But it also permits the judge to suspend the adult sentence and impose a juvenile sentence.

``The judge has the full range to do an adult or juvenile sentence,'' said prosecutor Bob Dautrich.

Afshin Farashahi, who also prosecuted the case, said the commonwealth would wait until a pre-sentence report has been prepared before deciding what kind of prison term to seek.

``We have not discussed the number of years,'' Farashahi said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot

THE REACTION:

Zackary Anthony Carter...

Color photo

THE VICTIM:

Cierra Rose Carter... KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING TRIAL

VERDICT