Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 5, 1992 TAG: 9203050291
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
The neighbor, Benet Stead, also said Shawn Paul Novak threw a temper tantrum when she refused to let him watch a television movie about Manson.
Novak, 17, is charged with capital murder in the March 4, 1991, stabbing deaths of Daniel Wayne Geier, 9, and Christopher Scot Weaver, 7. Novak and the victims lived in the same neighborhood, a Navy housing area near the ocean.
Becky Luttrell, another resident of the neighborhood, and two of Novak's high school classmates testified that Novak claimed he had found the boys' bodies the day after they disappeared while riding their bicycles.
But James McKinsey, a volunteer searcher who made the discovery, said Novak was not in his search party or anywhere near the location when the bodies were found.
In opening arguments before a jury of eight women and four men, defense attorney Richard Brydges said the slayings resulted from something that snapped in Novak's mind. "Shawn Novak did not kill those two boys," he said. "Someone, some thing, did."
He said Novak suffered from a form of schizophrenia and that psychiatric testimony would show that he envisioned the killings from outside his body.
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys told the jury they would see a videotaped police interview of Novak in which the youth admitted to the crime.
"You will have the opportunity to hear the defendant describe in his own words how he killed Danny Geier and Scotty Weaver," Humphreys said.
Over defense objections, Circuit Judge John Moore allowed the introduction of photographs of the victims. Both boys had multiple stab and cut wounds in the neck area, and Weaver was partially decapitated, said Dr. Faruk Preswalla, deputy chief medical examiner in the Tidewater region.
Humphreys said the photos were evidence of premeditation, but Brydges said they were intended to inflame the jury.
Stead, the first witness to testify, said she saw Novak with the two victims late on the afternoon they disappeared.
Stead said Novak and her son had been friends and Novak sometimes spent the night at her home. It was on one such occasion in 1990 that he became angry when she wouldn't let him watch "Helter Skelter," a program about the Manson murders, she said.
"He said Charles Manson was his idol and he wanted to be just like him," she testified.
But under cross-examination by Brydges, Stead said Novak was usually well-behaved in her home.
Moore has ruled that he alone will determine sentencing if Novak is convicted. Under Virginia law, capital murder is punishable by life in prison or death.
by CNB