DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710030654

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK,STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   68 lines

BEACH JURORS HEAR TAPED CONFESSION OF GIRL ACCUSED IN KILLING

A jury on Thursday heard the videotaped confession of a teen-ager accused of first-degree murder in the drive-by shooting last January of 17-year-old Timothy Wheaton.

In the videotape, Monica Oliver tells Virginia Beach Detective Doug Zebley that James W. Waters Jr. shot Wheaton when he mistook the Kellam High School student for another youth.

Waters, she said, then threatened her and the two other teen-agers involved in the shooting if they told anyone about the case.

``We were scared he was going to do something to us,'' said Oliver, whose confession also was played for a jury two months ago during the first-degree murder trail of Richard Ethan Hollingsworth. ``He told us `I hate narcs. I'll kill every one of you if you narc.' ''

The videotaped statement, taken the day after Oliver's arrest, is the final piece of evidence in the commonwealth's case against Oliver, 17, and Waters, 19, in the joint first-degree murder trial.

Each also faces charges of attempted malicious wounding and a weapons violation stemming from an earlier shooting Jan. 25, the day that Wheaton was gunned down in the streets of the Virginia Beach subdivision of Landstown Meadows.

In addition, Waters is being tried on a second weapons violation and charges of conspiracy to commit a felony and wearing a mask in public. Waters wore a bandana tied across his face during the first shooting, in which no one was injured.

Both defendants face possible life sentences, as does the 19-year-old Hollingsworth, who was convicted in August of first-degree murder. He will be sentenced on Oct. 8.

The fourth teen-ager involved in the Wheaton case, 18-year-old Stephanie Grace Wall, was tried and sentenced on lesser charges in juvenile court earlier this year. She was sentenced to juvenile detention and could be held until her 21st birthday.

Prosecutors have presented a case against Waters and Oliver which is almost identical to the case they successfully prosecuted against Hollingsworth in August. They believe that Waters was the triggerman, Oliver the driver, and Hollingsworth a passive observer who was riding in the back seat of the car at the time of the fatal shooting. It was Hollingsworth's car that the trio used in the drive-by shooting.

The three teen-agers picked up Wall and another youth after the shooting and drove to Long Beach, N.C., where they were arrested the next day.

Following their return to Virginia Beach, Oliver was interviewed by Zebley. She told the detective during the interview that she and Hollingsworth thought Waters was just going to scare another youth when they started out driving through Virginia Beach in the late afternoon of Jan. 25.

Waters told them ``he wasn't going to hurt anybody,'' Oliver told Zebley. ``If I knew he was going to shoot somebody, I would not be driving. I'm not dumb.''

But that changed when the trio drove up to Wheaton and his two companions on Barberry Lane. Suddenly Waters pulled out a handgun and aimed at Wheaton, demanding to know who he was.

Wheaton, she said, begged for his life and told Waters that he was not Ian Zinn, the youth who Waters was searching for.

Both she and Hollingsworth, she said, told Waters not to shoot him.

``I didn't expect him to shoot an innocent person,'' Oliver told Zebley. ``He said he wasn't Ian, and I believed him.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

NHAT MEYER\The Virginian-Pilot

James W. Waters Jr. listens to a videotaped confession by defendant

Monica Oliver in Virginia Beach Thursday. KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING JUVENILE TRIAL

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