
DATE: Friday, November 14, 1997             TAG: 9711140637

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:  111 lines

TEEN, TRIED AS ADULT, IS CONVICTED OF MURDER A FIGHT OVER A BASKETBALL GAME IN PORTSMOUTH LED TO SHOOTING. TEEN TRIAL: KILLER COULD SPEND HIS LIFE IN PRISON

A jury took a little more than an hour Thursday to convict Elliott Hill, now 16, of first-degree murder in the June 15 shooting of another teen-ager over a basketball game dispute.

Michael L. Hedge, 19, was shot three times as he tried to get away from four strangers who had joined Hedge and a friend in a game of basketball behind Simonsdale Elementary School.

``Little did he know he was playing a game with a group of people who didn't understand how precious life is,'' said Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Michael Massie during the prosecution's closing argument.

Hedge won the game that night, Massie told jurors.

``Elliott Hill decided to win the only way he knew how,'' Massie said.

During the two-day trial, Hill visibly trembled at times. Tried as an adult, the small-framed teen-ager looked younger than his 16 years. He spoke barely above a whisper and stood at attention, his hands to his side, when questioned by Circuit Court Judge Von L. Piersall at the beginning of the trial.

But Hedge's friend, Michael Morgan, described a different, 15-year-old Elliott Hill who emerged on the basketball court that spring night.

Morgan testified that Hill started the dispute and even shoved Hedge, before the victim hit Hill. At that point the other three jumped in, kicking and beating Hedge, Morgan testified.

Morgan said he tried to pull them off until Hedge called for him to get their car. As he did, he passed Hill coming back with a gun, he said.

Morgan said he heard three to four shots in quick succession, before he saw Hedge knock the gun out of the gunman's hand as he got to the car.

Morgan told jurors how he pulled off and without thinking drove to Hedge's girlfriend's house nearby, before they told him to drive to the hospital.

``I don't know why,'' he said. ``It just happened. I didn't think. It's just the first thing that came to my head.''

Family members began crying as Morgan told how Hedge would let out a ``slow low moan'' each time he exhaled.

``I was just trying to get him to respond to me . . . grabbing his hand and yelling his name,'' he said.

At one point, Hedge roused enough to roll down the window and put his head out. Each time Morgan would stop at a red light long enough for cars to pass, he would tell him, ``Don't stop,'' he remembered.

Morgan said his friend told him he was dying and that he couldn't see.

Commonwealth's Attorney Martin Bullock, who prosecuted the case with Massie, let silence fill the room as Morgan talked about learning his friend had died at the hospital.

Sobbing continued among the five rows of relatives and friends, many wearing the basketball-orange ribbons symbolizing the game Hedge loved and died over.

The family broke down again when a police evidence technician pulled out items that had been collected, including Hedge's basketball and the clothes he was wearing - down to his Nike tennis shoes.

The defense attorney, John H. Underwood, had pointed to a witness' initial identification of the victim's older brother, Anthony Hill, as the gunman.

When Morgan saw the older brother in a jail-house interview on television, he called police and said he was mistaken.

In a second photo lineup, Morgan identified Elliott Hill.

But prosecutors said the witness actually enhanced his credibility.

``He could have just rolled with it,'' Massie said.

``He initiated that on his own,'' he said of Morgan's call to police. ``That rings of someone willing to tell the truth.''

Charges against Anthony Hill, 23, a co-defendant at one point, were dismissed in an August preliminary hearing after Morgan could not put him at the scene.

Because the trial had been so emotionally charged and a verbal confrontation had broken out on the plaza behind the courthouse Wednesday, extra deputies stood at attention throughout the courtroom as the verdict was delivered.

Hedge's supporters were allowed to leave first and given several minutes to clear the building before the judge released the other side of the courtroom.

Much later, Hedge's mother, Debra Miller, and her husband, Tommy, emerged from a victim witness room.

The most difficult part of the trial, she said, had been trying to help her surviving two children with their grief during the trial, she said.

The Millers said they have started attending a support group for victims' survivors.

But both said the trial brought little comfort to them.

``There's three more out there,'' Tommy Miller said of the other suspects who are still at large. Debra Miller said she was glad Hill will pay for the crime.

``Hopefully another child will think twice,'' she said.

But the victim's family also expressed sympathy for Hill's family. A cousin of that family cuts the hair of one of Hedge's grandmothers.

``There's nothing to celebrate,'' Debra Miller said. ``They're hurting, too.''

Elliott Hill could face a life sentence. But if the teen-ager is sentenced as a juvenile, he could be sent to a juvenile facility until he is 21 or could face as little as months or days, according to Massie.

A pre-sentence report and a victim impact statement will be presented at a sentencing hearing, which has not been scheduled. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

D. KEVIN ELLIOTT

The Virginian-Pilot

In a Portsmouth courtroom Thursday, Elliott Hill, right, 16, was

found guilty in the shooting death of Michael L. Hedge, 19.

THE VICTIM

Michael Hedge, 19, was shot three times after an argument erupted

following a June 15 basketball game behind Simonsdale Elementary

School.

WHAT'S NEXT

If sentenced as an adult, Hill could get life. If sentenced as a

juvenile, he could be sent to a juvenile facility until he is 21. KEYWORDS: JUVENILE VERDICT MURDER TRIAL SHOOTING