Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 1, 1994 TAG: 9403010142
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WINCHESTER LENGTH: Medium
Randolph Hampton, who is serving a 12-year sentence for burglary and other crimes, testified Monday that Layne said he had "abducted a little girl and busted her head with a lug wrench. . . . He said he raped her, knocked her in the head and throwed her back in the car and took her somewhere and buried her."
The jury in Layne's capital murder trial did not hear Hampton testify. On Monday the judge and lawyers previewed the testimony to come and haggled over interpretations of law. Hampton will get a chance to tell his story after prosecutors and defense attorneys make their opening statements today.
Layne's trial was moved from Botetourt County to Winchester because of the intense publicity and community anger that followed Phadra Carter's disappearance and death Sept. 18.
Phadra was Layne's stepniece. Layne, 41, is accused of kidnapping her from her mother's trailer home in Rockbridge County, beating her to death with a tire tool and then chopping her up and burying her in a shallow grave in Botetourt County.
Hampton and Layne spent time together in the Botetourt and Rockbridge jails. Hampton - who referred to Billy Layne as "Blaine" throughout his testimony - said he began talking with Layne a few weeks ago when they were both in an isolation cellblock in Rockbridge.
After a few days, Hampton claims, Layne began confiding to him. Hampton said Layne laughed about eluding police for two days before his capture. "He told me he'd wished he'd have shot it out with the officers when they arrested him," Hampton said. "He had a shotgun or something with him when they arrested him."
Wythe county deputies - who arrested Layne without a fight Sept. 20 - found a shotgun he had taken from his brother's house.
In his questions for Hampton, defense attorney W.T. "Pete" Robey tried to get at whether law officers had strategically placed Hampton in the cell block with Layne - that is, whether they had put him there with instructions to worm a confession out of Layne. That would make Hampton an agent of the police and, because Layne's attorneys weren't there, make Layne's confession inadmissible.
But Hampton said no one had talked him into talking with Layne. It had just happened.
Robey also suggested that prosecutors might be giving Hampton a break on some of the charges against him in exchange for his testimony. Hampton said he had cut no deals. He said he mentioned Layne's statements when he was confessing to Rockbridge County Sheriff Bobby Day about a burglary at an elementary school.
Hampton had been given a plea bargain late last year on some of his charges. But he said the only thing he got out of it was an agreement that he would be transferred from the Rockbridge jail, where prisoners aren't allowed to smoke, to the jail in Augusta County, where smoking still is OK.
by CNB