Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 20, 1990 TAG: 9004200343
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Laurence Hammack Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But when his half-brother began to make incriminating statements about the slaying of a Roanoke real estate agent, Manns knew what he had to do.
At a preliminary hearing Thursday in Roanoke General District Court, Manns testified that Herbert Arthur Otey Jr. told him he "snapped" the night Girish R. Desai was choked to death.
Judge Richard Pattisall ruled there was probable cause to certify a first-degree murder charge against Otey to a grand jury.
Desai, an agent for Winn & Co. Realtors and the owner of Twin Oaks Apartments on Liberty Road Northwest, was found lying on the kitchen floor of a vacant apartment the morning of March 22. An autopsy determined that he was strangled.
Otey, 30-year-old resident of the apartment complex, was behind in his rent payments and was scheduled to be evicted the week of Desai's death, Manns testified.
In a conversation hours after Desai's body was discovered, Otey was sobbing and "extremely high" on crack cocaine, Manns testified.
While admitting that he and Desai had argued the night before about the rent dispute, Otey never made an outright confession. But as he pieced together bits of his half-brother's disjointed account, Manns said, he realized what had happened.
Manns testified that his half-brother told him: "One word led to another. . . . I snapped. . . . The next thing I knew I was letting him go."
Otey said he wiped his fingerprints from everything he had touched in the apartment before fleeing, Manns testified.
Manns said he felt uncomfortable testifying against his half-brother. "It's very awkward," he said after the hearing. "But it's the right thing to do."
In some cases, communications to a priest are protected from disclosure by a priest-penitent privilege. However, court officials said that Manns was not acting in his official capacity when the statements were made, and that he volunteered to disclose the information.
Manns said he decided "the best thing to do would be to turn [Otey] in" so that authorities could see his state of mind and perhaps provide treatment for his drug problem.
Otey made numerous references to being under the influence of crack when the incident happened, Manns said. "We were aware that he had a crack problem," he said.
In the weeks before the killing, Desai had filed court papers in an attempt to force Otey to pay his overdue rent. Although Otey was to be evicted, Manns said he thought that an amicable understanding had been reached.
Desai, 46, had gone to the apartments the night he was killed to meet with prospective tenants. He was found the next morning by his wife in an vacant apartment two doors away from Otey's apartment.
Desai, a native of India, had planned to sell the apartment complex within a few months, business associates have said.
Otey has been in the Roanoke jail in lieu of a $50,000 bond since he was arrested several hours after Desai's body was found.
Keywords:
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by CNB