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

DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995                   TAG: 9501240090
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

APPEAL FILED IN PICKUP DEATH

Defense attorney Harry Garrett argued in the Virginia Court of Appeals in Salem that Nellie Sue Whitt, 46, deserves a new trial based on insufficient evidence and on pretrial publicity.

In particular, he questioned the testimony of Vera Horn, Whitt's mother. Horn testified that her daughter confessed to killing Roy Thompson to collect a $100,000 life insurance policy.

A three-judge panel appointed by the appeals court will decide in about six weeks if Whitt's appeal should be heard.

Whitt is incarcerated at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland. She will be eligible for parole in 2002.

She hit and killed Thompson with his pickup truck on a rural Bedford County road in July 1991. She maintains that the death was an accident.