Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 23, 1993 TAG: 9308230036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
The jury trial of Jonathan D. Coleman, 16, and Jason E. Talbert, 17, both of Glade Spring, is scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Washington County Circuit Court.
Authorities have said that Gina Rene Anderson apparently was killed during a struggle with someone who entered her home Nov. 11 to steal the keys to her car.
The victim and defendants lived in the same neighborhood and knew one another.
The prosecution will try to prove that, following the shooting, the two teen-agers took her car with the idea of driving to Mexico, changed their minds by the time they reached Bristol, and returned to Glade Spring. The car was found abandoned in a cornfield about two miles from town.
Both boys recently had been suspended - one for a week and one for just a day - from Patrick Henry High School in Glade Spring, apparently for fighting with a third boy.
Police said Coleman gave them a statement saying that he and Talbert planned to steal the car but that he was not part of the actual shooting. He maintained that Talbert had the pistol and that Anderson was shot in a struggle with Talbert.
Talbert has denied any involvement in Anderson's death.
Defense attorneys for both boys were unsuccessful in trying to keep the case at the juvenile court level. Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Eugene Lohman transferred the charges to Circuit Court earlier this year, and a grand jury indictment followed June 16.
If convicted of capital murder, they could be executed or sentenced to life in prison. They also are charged with armed robbery and use of a firearm in the commission of capital murder and in the commission of armed robbery.
Prosecutors withdrew grand larceny charges against them because of a Circuit Court ruling that the juvenile judge made a technical error.
They have been held under $300,000 bond each in a Bristol juvenile detention facility since their arrests two days after the slaying.
Police found a 9-millimeter shell casing at the house where Anderson's brother found her body on the afternoon of Nov. 11. The pistol that fired the bullet was found to belong to Coleman's father.
In his statement, Coleman said the boys knew that Anderson routinely left her keys in her car. On this particular day, however, Anderson took the keys in the house after returning from a filling station before going to work.
They decided to go get the pistol to try to force Anderson to hand over the keys, Coleman's statement said.
A farmer told police he recognized Anderson's car when he saw two teen-age boys driving it that day.
Anderson previously lived in Winston-Salem, N.C., and near Baltimore and worked as a paralegal. She gave up that job to return to her hometown with her husband, who worked in Bristol.
She took a job at Todd's Market in Saltville. Family acquaintances said one reason she moved back home was that she thought it was a safer place to live.
by CNB