DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130455

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK,STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  127 lines

4 SUSPECTS AREN'T FACING CHARGES IN BEACH KILLING THE CASE AGAINST THE MEN WAS ONCE THOUGHT TO BE SOLID.

Sixteen months ago, prosecutors had a wealth of suspects in the murder of 24-year-old Derek L. Creed.

Police arrested four men in two cities. All were thought to be involved in the June 24, 1996, murder, in which Creed was shot once in the head in the bedroom of his home.

But what once looked like a solid case was actually shaky. Prosecutors' last hope of obtaining a conviction in the case apparently evaporated Wednesday when murder charges against Gregory Fox, 21, were withdrawn in Circuit Court for lack of evidence.

Now, all four original suspects are free of murder charges.

Fox, in jail since Feb. 3, is the last of the four original suspects.

The others - John E. Bryant, Anthony Wynn and Herman Williams - avoided conviction in a different way:

Bryant was acquitted in September of murder but convicted on a firearms charge.

Prosecutors never brought charges against Wynn because they were confident he would be tried on another, unrelated murder charge in Portsmouth. Instead, that charge was dropped because Portsmouth prosecutors failed to take his case to trial quickly enough.

Williams' first-degree murder charge was reduced to burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary when he agreed to testify against Bryant.

Murder charges in the Creed case could still be brought against Wynn, and Fox could be recharged with Creed's death. But today, less than a year and a half after the crime, no one stands convicted or accused.

Fox, Bryant, Wynn and Williams, all in their 20s, allegedly were members of a Portsmouth gang that developed a burglary business directed at an unusual target. Prosecutors believe the gang identified people they thought were drug dealers, staked out their homes, then broke in when the residents were away.

Prosecutors say Creed was killed because he was unlucky enough to be home in a condominium off Indian River Road during a burglary.

It was a theory that tied together neatly. When Williams agreed to testify against the others in a plea bargain deal, it looked like prosecutors would be getting two for the price of one: A man charged with killing Creed would be brought to justice and a gang that had broken into homes from Virginia Beach to York County would be put out of business.

Successful prosecution would have rested largely on the testimony of Williams, who admitted committing felonies.

``In order to catch the devil, you sometimes have to dance with the sinners,'' said Keri Markiewicz, lead prosecutor in the case.

At Bryant's three-day trial in September, the prosecution tried to show that Bryant and his gang profiled drug dealers, staked out their homes, then broke in when no one was home.

There was little doubt that the burglary ring existed and conducted business throughout Hampton Roads. Williams confessed to 10 burglaries and Fox confessed to taking part in at least two on the Peninsula. After the murder charge was withdrawn Wednesday, police served Fox with six warrants. He is being held without bond and will be arraigned today on charges related to burglaries.

In his opening statement at Bryant's trial, prosecutor David Laird told the jury that Creed fit the profile that Bryant and his cohorts allegedly used to target victims.

Unwittingly, however, police and prosecutors helped Bryant's defense attorney, Joseph A. Migliozzi. A plate of cocaine found next to the victim's bed was never analyzed or entered as evidence, Migliozzi said. A set of scales typically used in drug transactions and $1,000 in cash found in the garage also were kept out of evidence.

Migliozzi speculated that prosecutors thought the cocaine, cash and drug paraphernalia might prejudice the jury against Creed.

Migliozzi also showed that police vigorously offered to shield Williams from a murder charge in exchange for his testimony against Bryant. During their interview of Williams on June 27, 1996, Williams told police, ``Y'all are trying to make me say things I don't want to say.''

In the same interview, police told Williams that if he cooperated and testified, he would be protected from a murder prosecution. Eventually, Williams' first-degree murder charge was reduced to burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary.

The jury deliberated 3 1/2 hours before acquitting Bryant on the murder charge.

``I think they thought that Bryant was not a saint, but that there was no evidence that John Bryant was (at the scene of the crime),'' Migliozzi said.

Prosecutor Markiewicz agreed. ``Obviously, (the jury) had a doubt about whether Bryant was there,'' she said.

``We put our best case forward,'' she added. ``Obviously, we would have preferred another verdict.''

Markiewicz admitted that jurors probably questioned Williams' credibility because he had so much to gain and so little to lose by pointing the finger at Bryant. But, she said, his story about the various robberies that the gang committed was corroborated by police.

``All of his (statements about the burglaries) were backed up by police reports and investigation,'' Markiewicz said.

Williams took police investigators to the scenes of burglaries committed by the gang.

Markiewicz said her case likely convinced at least one person in the courtroom of Bryant's guilt.

Trial Judge Edward W. Hanson Jr. said in court that he was certain Bryant was in the condominium where Creed was killed and that Bryant had possession of the gun used to kill Creed.

Hanson made his statement the week after Bryant was acquitted of murder and moments before convicting Bryant of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Bryant was sentenced to three years in jail, with all but six months suspended. He was released Sept. 19 after receiving credit for time already served.

Once Bryant beat the murder charge, though, prosecutors were left with few options.

Williams had a plea bargain, and Fox was never thought to be a primary suspect in Creed's death. According to the prosecution's evidence, Fox was only involved in the murder because he stood guard outside the condominium where Creed was killed.

But the main problem was that no charges had been filed against Anthony Wynn. That decision had been made because Wynn already was being held in Portsmouth for the unrelated murder of Mark Holley in March 1996.

On July 26, the Portsmouth murder charge and other charges against Wynn were dismissed when Circuit Judge James A. Cales Jr. ruled that the speedy-trial law had been violated.

Wynn was never released from jail because federal authorities put a hold on him for a gun charge that was pending. He remains in jail.

Prosecutors believed it was Wynn who was with Bryant in the upstairs bedroom of Creed's condominium when the murder occurred.

But after Bryant's acquittal, they were left with only Fox to prosecute, and no one alleges that Fox ever entered the room where Creed was killed.

Markiewicz said no decision has been made about whether to charge Wynn with the Creed murder. ``It depends on getting newly discovered evidence,'' she said. ``The investigation is not over.'' KEYWORDS: MURDER

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