Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 28, 1994 TAG: 9402280040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Medium
"I know not what to say as I don't know what I have done," Layne wrote Oct. 12, three weeks after Phadra died.
Layne told his brother Ronnie that the only thing he could remember about that fatal weekend was "what I have been told. I know that it doesn't help anyone involved or for that matter it doesn't help me either, but I really don't remember."
Layne said he was sorry for "all the trouble" he had caused his family. He thanked Ronnie for sticking by him and trying to help him reform after he got out of prison a couple of years ago.
"If I live to be a hundred years old, I will remember my time with you with nothing but happiness, and if I die tomorrow, I will go thinking of the good times we had."
Today, William Ray Layne faces a jury that may decide whether he will live or die.
He is charged with abduction and capital murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors claim that Layne kidnapped Carter from her trailer home in Rockbridge County early Sept. 18 because he wanted to rape her. Carter was the stepdaughter of Layne's other brother, Marty.
Investigators have no eyewitnesses to link Layne directly with the crime. But they have assembled a great amount of evidence - including tire tracks, DNA tests and fingerprints - that they say shows Layne was the killer.
A crime lab scientist has reported that swabs taken from Layne's thigh and genitalia "are consistent with a mixture" of the DNA characteristics of Layne and Carter.
During questioning by Botetourt Sheriff Reed Kelly, Layne did not confess to the crime - but he also refused to say he didn't do it. He told the sheriff that weekend was a blank and he may have "just snapped."
The trial is expected to last a week or more. It was moved to Winchester because of the intense publicity and anger that Carter's death provoked. After Layne was charged, some people called the courthouse and volunteered to serve on his jury. Some suggested what punishments they thought he deserved - even though a trial had yet to be held.
Security will be tight. All spectators will be searched with metal detectors.
The defendant is a tall, thin man who grew up in the Flatwoods section of Botetourt County. Layne turned 41 in jail, three days before Christmas.
In 1977, he burglarized several stores in the county, stealing two cases of Bunker Hill beef, 10 pairs of blue jeans, a brown size 44 jacket and many other items. Court records say Layne "could give no real explanation," other than the fact that he had been drinking.
He got a suspended sentence, but ended up serving a year in prison for violating his probation.
In 1984, he pleaded guilty to another string of burglaries. A judge slapped him with 51 years in prison.
In the letter to his brother - which is in court files - Layne talks of having mental problems and trying to commit suicide.
"Ronnie, I want to be honest with you, back in '84 when I tried to kill myself I was out of control & I knew it. I begged for help but they just locked me up & made me rough it. After a while I learned how to get along despite my condition, but I never recovered."
He did well in prison, however, studying hard to improve on his eighth-grade education and taking classes in electronics and small-engine repair. He was paroled in December 1992.
He got a job with a home-repair company and moved back in with his wife and children. He seemed to do well for a while.
Last summer, his former boss says, Layne started coming to work late or not at all. He moved out of his wife's house and in with Ronnie, who lived near Flatwoods, down the road from the family home place where they grew up.
Billy Layne disappeared the Saturday that Carter also disappeared. He was arrested two days later, after his car was stopped in Wythe County, heading south on Interstate 81.
After two more days of searching, law officers dug Carter's body out of a shallow grave in some woods, about a mile from Ronnie's house.
"I knew all along I was slipping but I expected to just go out of my mind and stay that way," Layne wrote his brother. "I never expected anything like this."
by CNB