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

DATE: MONDAY, October 4, 1993                   TAG: 9310040092
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

HEARTS OF GOLD

Inmates in Bedford County sent a homemade sympathy card last week to the family of 11-year-old Phadra Carter, the Rockbridge County girl abducted from her home and found beaten to death last month.

"Although we are incarcerated, we also have children and loved ones out there, so we too sympathize," said the card, signed by 91 inmates and six officers at the Bedford County Jail Annex in Moneta.

Inmate artist Don Sexton decorated the 11-by-14-inch card with his drawing of a red rose entwined around a wooden cross.

An attached note to the Roanoke Times & World-News said inmates were upset by the child's murder and hoped people wouldn't "look down on us for incidents created by a few disturbed individuals."

William R. Layne, brother of Phadra's stepfather, served more than eight years in Virginia prisons on burglary convictions before being charged with killing the child.

by CNB