Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993 TAG: 9308280167
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Long
Whitt's murder trial adjourned early Friday after Jimmy Ray Carnley testified that he came across Whitt and Thompson along Virginia 670 shortly after she had hit Thompson with a pickup truck. Whitt was hysterical. Thompson was lying at the side of the road.
"She kept calling out to Jesus to help him pull through."
Carnley said he tried to revive Thompson, but it was futile. He couldn't find a pulse, and Thompson did not respond to his lifesaving efforts.
Meanwhile, Whitt kept saying that Thompson couldn't die, that he had to help her with the children. She kept calling him her husband. "You can beat this," Carnley said she pleaded to Thompson.
He testified further that she told him Thompson had problems with depression, that they had been arguing and that he had jumped out in front of the truck before she could stop.
She told him that she was a registered nurse and appealed to him to help her try reviving Thompson, but she was too upset to carry through, Carnley said.
Before he finished testifying, Whitt jumped up and ran from the courtroom in tears.
Circuit Judge William Sweeney took a short recess, then adjourned court about 30 minutes early. Carnley is expected to continue his testimony Monday, when Whitt's trial goes into its fourth day.
Other testimony Friday was less dramatic.
Most of it revolved around the paper trail Whitt left after Thompson's death that eventually helped lead to her being charged with first-degree murder.
Prosecutor Jim Updike painstakingly showed how that trail led from the Lynchburg company where Thompson worked to the New Orleans insurance firm that controlled his $100,000 life insurance policy to the Botetourt County funeral home that handled his burial.
Updike started with the power of attorney Thompson gave Whitt shortly before his death in July 1991. Updike has said Whitt told police that Thompson's doctors suggested he give her power of attorney to help manage his finances.
But in testimony from Thompson's doctors and two counselors who both evaluated Thompson, none of them said they suggested he should give her that authority.
Updike is hoping to prove that Whitt, 45, wrecked Thompson's marriage, took over his life, made herself the beneficiary on his life insurance and then deliberately killed him to collect on the policy.
However, one of Thompson's doctors, Dr. Dennis Burns of Lynchburg, said Thompson had told him he was unfaithful to his wife, Patsy.
"The impression is that he had a colorful past," Burns said.
Burns and others also testified that Thompson was depressed, as Whitt has claimed. He was prescribed the anti-depressant Prozac to help him cope.
The doctors were questioned about recent publicity on alleged side effects of Prozac, including homicidal and suicidal tendencies, but both doctors said the drug was safe.
None of Thompson's doctors or counselors described him as suicidal. They said he was mostly upset by his estrangement from his wife and two sons caused when he moved in with Whitt in 1990.
Whitt accompanied Thompson to most of his appointments, they said. One counselor, Christina Pacho of Lynchburg, said Whitt did most of the talking. "She answered a lot in the session for him," Pacho said. "There seemed to be an emotional dependency there."
Other testimony came from employees at Babcock and Wilcox in Lynchburg, where Thompson worked, and from insurance workers at Pan American Life Insurance Co. in New Orleans, which handled his life insurance.
They described telephone conversations with Whitt in which she inquired about changing Thompson's $100,000 accidental death policy to make herself the beneficiary instead of Patsy Thompson.
The insurance company employees also recounted conversations and written correspondence with Whitt after Thompson's death about trying to collect on the policy in which she said she needed the money to pay his funeral expenses, among other bills.
It was found that she forged Thompson's signatures on the insurance forms. Whitt said she had power of attorney to do so, but workers at Pan American became suspicious and started an inquiry.
Whitt has not received the money.
Ray Sloan of the Rader Funeral Home in Buchanan also testified.
He said he received calls about Thompson's funeral from both Whitt and Patsy Thompson. "That kind of put me in a predicament," he said.
Sloan arranged for two separate funeral services, one in Buchanan, where Whitt and Thompson were living, and the other near Farmville, where Thompson was buried. He also arranged for separate newspaper obituaries, one in the Roanoke Times & World-News that listed Whitt as Thompson's wife, and one in the Richmond Times-Dispatch listing Patsy Thompson as his wife.
Thompson's funeral bill of $4,000 was paid by his mother, Sloan said.
by CNB