NOT GUILTY PLEA GIVEN IN MOTHER'S DAY KILLINGS

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 5, 1992                   TAG: 9202050323
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium
NOT GUILTY PLEA GIVEN IN MOTHER'S DAY KILLINGS
Kenneth Stewart, who once told an investigator he "premeditated and executed" the killings of his estranged wife and their 5-month-old son, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to capital murder in the shootings.
Stewart, 37, also pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and two counts of firearms violations in connection with the deaths of Cynthia and Jonathan Stewart in southern Bedford County last Mother's Day .
Lawyers spent most of Tuesday, the first day of Stewart's trial, picking a jury of seven men and six women to hear evidence in the case.
The attorney will make opening arguments today.
Prosecutor James Updike and Public Defender Webster Hogeland questioned nearly 30 potential jurors about their backgrounds and their opinions, in particular, on the issue of the death penalty.
If they convict Stewart of capital murder, jurors will have to decide whether to sentence him to life in prison or to death in the electric chair.
"It's just my Bible belief that thou shalt not kill," said one man, who later was dropped from the group of possible jurors.
"I would have great reservations and it would be a great moral dilemma for me," said another man, who also did not end up on the jury. "It would probably be the toughest decision I'd have to make."
Stewart's plea Tuesday suggested a marked change in his own feelings about the death penalty.
In the past, Stewart has said he wanted to die.
In fact, in a September statement made public Tuesday, Stewart confessed to the shootings, told authorities where he dumped the pistol - and begged them to promise that he would receive the death penalty.
"I want the death penalty to be imposed on this, 'cause this is something a man can't live with," Stewart, in jail, told investigators at that time.
"I can't live with it and it's just come back to me sort of by bits and pieces in the last couple days," Stewart had said, according to a transcript of the conversation. "And I'm coming unglued.
"If you can talk to the district attorney and tell him that I'll give a full, a full account, you know, of step by step about what happened that day and stuff," Stewart said.
"It was premeditated and executed," he said.
When the investigator told Stewart that he could make no promises about a death sentence, Stewart said he understood.
"But these are things that, that needs done in this case, you know, that I think that justice would be done," Stewart said.
Circuit Judge William Sweeney on Tuesday denied a defense motion to prevent jurors from hearing a tape of that conversation.
Sweeney also ruled earlier that incriminating statements by Stewart will be allowed as evidence.
Jurors also will see a police videotape of the Stewarts' Huddleston farmhouse in the hours after the May 12 killings.
Sweeney previewed the eight-minute tape before denying a defense motion asking that it be barred as prosecution evidence.
Arguing that it was inflammatory and not informative, defense attorney Hogeland said the video's suspense-creating manner was "Hitchcock-ian."
"It looks like a horror movie," Hogeland said.
Updike disagreed, saying the film will "add another element" to jurors' understanding of the scene and the evidence inside the house.
As the film begins, the camera scans the first floor of the house along Virginia 739. It zooms in on a playpen crowded with stuffed animals, toys and a stained bed sheet.
Five-month-old Jonathan Stewart was in the playpen when he was shot twice in the head and was then carried to the second floor, authorities have said.
The camera then captures framed photographs on a wall, a cluttered, but neatly kept kitchen and a woman's pocketbook on a table, before traveling up a flight of stairs.
There, it finds the body of Cynthia Stewart, lying back on a bed, her feet touching the floor. In her left arm is Jonathan.
Stewart, who had watched attentively during jury selection, did not look up from behind his shaded glasses as the videotape played on a courtroom VCR. He looked down at his hands and fidgeted with his fingers.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB