Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 24, 1994 TAG: 9402240168
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN BARNES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Long
The muted reaction contrasted starkly with her emotional outburst when the jury announced its guilty verdict last summer. That day, Whitt flailed her arms wildly before sinking into her chair and erupting into a long, high-pitched scream.
Whitt, 45, was convicted of first-degree murder for hitting and killing Roy Thompson with his truck on a remote Bedford County road July 13, 1991. Prosecutors said she wanted to collect his $100,000 life insurance policy.
Whitt's attorneys maintained that Thompson's death was accidental.
But Wednesday, Bedford County Circuit Judge William Sweeney upheld the jury's guilty verdict and set a 40-year sentence. She could have been sentenced to life in prison.
Whitt's attorneys filed appeal papers immediately following the trial, but the prospect may be dim because of financial strains, she said after the sentencing.
She will be eligible for parole in eight years.
After a parade of character witnesses on her behalf, Whitt took the stand for nearly an hour of emotional testimony. She appealed to the judge to consider her scarred relationship with her parents and her children's needs.
"If I'd had a mama to put her arms around me and love me up and say, `Sue, I love you, and I'm proud of you,' I wouldn't have made some of the decisions I've made," she said of her estranged parents. "There have been so many times I've wished they'd have drowned me or put me under a log, because that would be easier than sitting here today."
Her mother testified against her twice. During the weeklong trial last summer, Vera Horn testified that her daughter confessed to plotting the murder of Thompson to collect his insurance policy. Wednesday, she said Whitt threatened to kill her and jury members after the guilty verdict was returned.
The family split still was evident Wednesday. "The whole day was hard to face, but the hardest thing was my family sitting on one side - my brothers, sister and children - and my parents on the other side," Whitt said.
Whitt, who tucked a small family portrait in her blazer pocket before taking the stand, cried throughout the proceedings and dabbed her cheeks with a yellow tissue.
She maintained her innocence, saying she would never intentionally hurt Thompson.
"He helped me put things in perspective," she said. "He was an emotional strength, a lover, and to me, a husband and a father for my two kids."
Thompson and Whitt informally exchanged wedding vows after living together, although Thompson never divorced his wife of 26 years, Patsy.
Throughout her testimony, Whitt tried to convey her love for Thompson and her devotion to her children.
Being separated from her children since her legal battle began last March has been difficult, she said.
She is allowed 20 minutes of visiting time a month, but her children write her every day. She calls them only once a week because the collect calls are expensive.
Whitt has spent much of her life entangled in volatile relationships as she sought emotional and financial support.
Criminal charges, violent episodes and bouts of mental instability are woven through her story, along with periods of relative calm during which she raised four children.
During cross-examination, Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Updike made Whitt read from 1988 medical records from St. Alban's psychiatric center. The reports revealed that she had homicidal and suicidal tendencies.
Whitt voluntarily entered the psychiatric facility after firing a shot at her first husband. Joe Whitt molested and raped the children, she testified, and she fired at him in their defense.
Updike seized the moment to exploit her tendency to behave violently. "So in reaction to a difficult situation, your thought pattern was to kill him," he said.
Within five months after Thompson's death, Whitt married Bennie Sloan. That marriage lasted three weeks; Whitt said she caught him having sex with someone else during their Mexican honeymoon.
Sloan paid Whitt $40,000 and gave her a new car under terms of a hand-written separation agreement penned by Whitt.
"Isn't the real reason you got involved with Roy Thompson and Bennie Sloan financial?" Updike asked.
No, she replied: she loved Thompson; and she hoped Sloan would provide emotional stability for her children.
In closing arguments, Updike painted Whitt as a scheming and greedy woman - cunning enough to kill a man for money.
Defense attorney Harry Garrett countered that his client's actions since the accident - including convictions for welfare fraud and assaulting ex-boyfriend Michael Stanback's wife - should not darken her chances of a reduced sentence.
He concluded by reminding Sweeney that Whitt still has two teen-age children for whom she is responsible.
As Sweeney delivered the sentence, Whitt bowed her head silently.
Afterward, daughter JoAnne Wilshire cried on a relative's shoulder and said the 40-year sentence - instead of life - was the only positive result of Wednesday's sentencing.
Darlene Stanley, Whitt's oldest daughter, affirmed her belief in Whitt's innocence. "It seems like everything's based on lies and false accusations, and that's not fair," she said.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***