DATE: Wednesday, October 15, 1997           TAG: 9710150448

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   46 lines

TEEN GUILTY IN CHESAPEAKE MURDER

A 17-year-old Norfolk youth pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing and robbing the owner of an Amoco gas station last year.

Donald Brooks Jr. pleaded guilty in Chesapeake Circuit Court to first-degree murder, robbery and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Judge E. Preston Grissom deferred making a decision on the plea agreement until he can read a probation officer's report about Brooks' background, due in December.

The maximum penalty for murder in this case is life in prison. Robbery is punishable by life in prison and using a firearm in a felony is punishable by three years in prison, Grissom said.

Brooks is accused of shooting Fredrick Sawyer, who owned the Amoco station on Berkley Avenue and Wilson Road, during a robbery Nov. 15, 1996.

Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Nancy Parr described to the court what witnesses said about the shooting.

Sawyer, 46, of the 3700 block of Lynnfield Drive in Virginia Beach, had parked his gray Cadillac outside the cashier's booth at the station to unload boxes of cigars and cigarettes, when he was approached by two men. Amoco employee Credia Hicks said she heard a loud noise that sounded like a car backfiring. She looked toward the noise and saw Sawyer fall to the ground, and Brooks pointing at him.

Hicks smelled gunpowder and realized the noise was a gunshot. She then heard two more gunshots, Parr told the court. Brooks demanded the cash register money tray and money bags before fleeing.

Police have not arrested the second man in the robbery, Parr said.

Sawyer died from a gunshot and from wounds created by the bullet as it passed through his arm into his chest, according to a medical examiner's report described by Parr.

Brooks turned himself in to Chesapeake police Nov. 30. When acquaintances asked him why he shot Sawyer, Brooks told them it was ``because he moved,'' Parr told the court.

Brooks is scheduled to reappear in Circuit Court. on Dec. 9. ILLUSTRATION: ALBA BRAGOLI illustration

Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Nancy Parr talks as Judge E. Preston

Grissom and the defendant, Donald Brooks Jr., foreground, listen.

Brooks' lawyers, Hugh Black, wearing glasses, and Randy Smith, look

on.

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