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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 14, 1992                   TAG: 9201140203
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: SALEM                                LENGTH: Short

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MURDER EVIDENCE OBTAINED ILLEGALLY, ATTORNEY SAYS

David Wayne Mills was improperly convicted of killing a Lee County deputy sheriff because the key evidence against him was obtained illegally at his Illinois home, an attorney told the Virginia Court of Appeals Monday.

A private investigator and close friend of the Effingham County, Ill., sheriff found the evidence while installing a security system as a "ruse" to search Mills' Illinois home, Walt Rivers argued.

"It was a very purposeful search conducted by [Floyd] Barlow," which law enforcement officers "could not lawfully conduct," Rivers said.

But Assistant Attorney General Michael Judge said Barlow was an independent businessman, not an agent of the sheriff's department, who stumbled upon the evidence while doing his job.

Mills, 27, was convicted in 1989 of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Deputy John Lee Martin and was sentenced to life in prison.

- Associated Press

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