Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502060050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Heard, a well-known renovator who left his mark on Explore Park with the log cabins he rebuilt, was convicted of having sex with the girl in his Salem Avenue Southwest home in 1991, after leaving his job with the living history park.
In recommending the maximum sentence, a jury in Roanoke Circuit Court rejected Heard's defense that he had an intimate relationship with the girl, but not until she was 15.
The charge of carnal knowledge, also known as statutory rape, alleged that Heard had consensual sex with the girl when she was 14.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald Teaster said Heard, 44, made the girl his slave - requiring her to cook, clean and help with his renovation business by day, and submit to his sexual desires by night.
``Part of her life is gone,'' Teaster told the jury in a closing argument that left his voice cracking with emotion. ``Ren Heard took that life from her, and I ask that you find him guilty as charged.''
Heard, however, had maintained that he and the girl had a loving, sexual relationship that began shortly after she turned 15. That defense put him in the awkward position of acknowledging wrongdoing, but not under the exact legal wording spelled out in the indictment.
``He's stupid and he's wrong, and I agree he should have some sort of criminal sanction,'' said attorney Jack Kennett, who, along with David Bowers, represented Heard. ``But he's not guilty of this crime.''
In earlier statements to the jury, Bowers had compared Heard's story to ``My Fair Lady,'' a musical based on a George Bernard Shaw play in which a British professor transforms a poor street woman into a refined lady and falls in love with her in the process.
But that argument proved to be more relevant for the prosecution as it portrayed Heard as a manipulator of the 14-year-old girl, who is now 18.
It took the jury of six men and six women about three hours to reach a decision. Heard remained impassive as his guilt was pronounced, and over the next few minutes cast numerous glances at the victim, seated on the front row of the courtroom. She sat with her head slightly bowed and did not return his gaze.
Part of Heard's defense had been to build on his reputation as a prominent, upstanding member of the community. A parade of character witnesses, including a preacher and a police lieutenant, told of his civic duties, which included heading a neighborhood group to fight crime in the West End neighborhood.
Testimony during the two-day trial told a different story.
The girl told the jury that the illegal affair started when she was 14 and Heard set out to teach her about sex. Fondling led to sexual intercourse, she testified Thursday, which continued on a regular basis until she could no longer tolerate the situation and left the home in 1994.
Several weeks later, Heard wrote the girl a love letter in which he longed for the lost relationship, mixing romance with erotica as he recounted graphic details of their prior lovemaking.
``I was your warrior, your knight, your hero,'' Heard wrote as he implored the girl to come back to him and ``be my violin, so I may play our song of love with my bow.''
The letter wound up in the hands of the girl's mother, and then in the hands of a detective with the Roanoke Police Department, and finally in the hands of the jury when it was introduced as Exhibit 1 of the prosecution's case.
by CNB