Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 5, 1993 TAG: 9308050264
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Morehead, 21, of Pulaski County, had faced the possibility of a capital murder conviction - and the electric chair.
After deliberating 4 1/2 hours, a Montgomery County jury decided there was not enough evidence to prove Morehead fired the shot that killed Lorna Raines Crockett.
But the jury did believe Morehead was guilty of first-degree murder - either by firing one of the shots or through a law that finds participants in an event that leads to a crime equally responsible for the results.
Morehead, who pleaded not guilty to all charges, had told police that another man with him on June 1, 1992, made the decision to abduct and rob Lorna Raines Crockett and then shoot her.
Crockett, 32, was abducted, robbed and killed as she made a night bank deposit for Shoe Show, the Hill's Plaza store she had managed in Christiansburg for about two weeks.
Crockett, a Pulaski County woman who was married and the mother of three boys, made the bank deposit, but her purse was taken and she was shot twice in the head with a .32-caliber handgun. Her body was found June 2 on Falling Branch Road, across the street from the shoe store.
Besides first-degree murder, Morehead was found guilty of robbing Crockett and of felonious use of a firearm.
The jury found him innocent of an abduction charge.
Morehead also was found guilty of attempted robbery and conspiring to rob Stuart Arbuckle - then a Domino's Pizza store manager who was almost robbed about five hours after Crockett was shot - and of two counts of using a firearm to commit a crime.
Arbuckle foiled the robbery attempt, followed his assailants and called police on his car's cellular telephone. Police stopped the car in which Morehead was riding and found two guns - including the gun used to kill Crockett.
Phil Keith, Montgomery County's commonwealth's attorney, said Arbuckle "is responsible for this whole crime spree being solved . . . and stopped."
Keith urged the jury to put Morehead away for life and asked them to remember what happened to Crockett.
"They murdered her. They left her on the side of the road and she died there," Keith said. "And all she was doing was trying to make a night deposit."
Morehead is to be formally sentenced by Circuit Judge Kenneth Devore on Oct. 4. Morehead's attorney, Jeff Rudd of Roanoke, requested a pre-sentence report.
Morehead is the last of three people charged to be tried.
Keith said he was happy with the verdict Wednesday, noting the sentence returned against Morehead was similar to those given to the others charged in Crockett's death.
William Ray Smith, 19, of Pulaski County, received life in prison plus 70 years after pleading no contest to the charges. Katina Lynn Zelenak was sentenced to life plus 16 years.
Keith characterized the trio as "hoodlums on the loose," planning to rob Hills Department store, dropping that plan when it proved too risky, killing Crockett, then driving to Blacksburg with plans to rob Arbuckle of the Domino's deposit.
Keith said Smith was the "stooge" and Morehead was the "mastermind" of the operation.
"Mr. Morehead was the leader of this enterprise and when Mr. Smith could not do the job correctly, then Mr. Morehead stepped in and took the gun from him and shot Mrs. Crockett," Keith told the jury.
Rudd put on no evidence Wednesday morning, although he had told the jury that his case would prove it was Smith who shot Crockett.
After Keith concluded his case without calling Zelenak as a witness, Rudd abandoned plans to put an expert witness on the stand to pin the murder on Smith. The testimony would have been based in part on a blood-stained baseball cap Smith was wearing.
Morehead's first trial in April ended in a mistrial after the court learned that one of the jurors was related to a victim of a Pulaski County robbery in which Morehead is charged - and because Zelenak, while testifying, referred to the Pulaski County charges that she and Morehead face.
Keith opted not to use Zelenak this time and instead relied on the testimony of a man who bunked near Morehead in the Montgomery County Jail.
Greg Margerum testified Tuesday that Morehead said he shot Crockett because he couldn't stand to see her suffer after she was shot by Smith.
Rudd told the jury that Margerum - who has been convicted of taking indecent liberties with a minor and of obtaining drugs by fraud - was not a credible witness and told Keith the story in an effort to gain favor.
Keith obtained a court order allowing Margerum to be temporarily released from jail so he would not be near Morehead before testifying against him.
by CNB