DATE: Friday, October 17, 1997              TAG: 9710170639

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   49 lines

GIRL'S TRIAL IN SLASHING CASE RESULTS IN HUNG JURY

Markesha Brown, a 17-year-old Wilson High School student, walked from juror to juror, showing them the colorless scar beneath her lip that mars her otherwise flawless skin.

She held up one hand, showing jurors the other scar that she received while trying to fend off another slash to her face.

But on Thursday, a jury failed to arrive at a unanimous decision on whether or not Chiquita A. Wright was guilty of malicious wounding in connection with a schoolyard fight that resulted in Brown's injuries. The hung jury means that the case will have to be retried, and a date will be set later.

If convicted of malicious wounding, Wright faces five to 20 years in prison. The jurors had been instructed they could find her guilty of lesser charges of unlawful wounding or assault and battery.

The incident occurred March 13 near the school buses as students were leaving Wilson High.

In opening testimony, prosecutor Vivian Brown described how March 13 started out as a typical school day for Markesha. The prosecutor said the victim's day began to change when she was taunted and teased by Wright and Michelle Hurdle, who also has been charged with malicious wounding.

The prosecutor said the girls made fun of the victim's teeth and later in the lunchroom made gestures indicating that they were going to hurt her.

Markesha Brown was on the school bus ready to go home, according to the prosecutor, when she saw the students coming.

``She didn't want to be trapped on that bus,'' the prosecutor said.

When she confronted Wright and the other student, Hurdle ``took a blade and brutally cut her across the face,'' the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor said Wright also tried to cut Brown in the face, but the victim raised her hand to protect her face.

``As a result her flesh was torn on her hand,'' Vivian Brown said.

But Alberto Herrero, the defense attorney, told jurors it was a case of guilt by association and that Wright did not take part in the fight.

``Chiquita Wright may be no saint, but she's not a malicious wounder,'' Herrero said.

Hurdle, the other defendant, is scheduled for a Nov. 25 trial.

Markesha Brown, who was 16 at the time, needed 18 stitches to her face and six to her hand to close her wounds.

Without plastic surgery, the scar will be permanent, her mother, Lynette Brown, said later.

Markesha Brown said she did not really know the two girls she has named as her attackers, although Hurdle was in one of her classes. KEYWORDS: TRIAL ASSAULT

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