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

DATE: THURSDAY, November 16, 1995                   TAG: 9511160057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TEEN PLEADS NO CONTEST IN BRUTAL ATTACKS

A Roanoke teen-ager was convicted Wednesday in the brutal beatings of two men in Old Southwest - one who was clubbed with a baseball bat in his apartment and the second who was kicked and stomped into a coma hours later on a nearby street.

Leo A. Harper, 18, pleaded no contest to two charges of malicious wounding. Under a plea agreement reached in Roanoke Circuit Court, he will face up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced in January.

Harper was charged along with 15-year-old Davon A. Anderson, who pleaded no contest under a similar plea agreement last week. Anderson was 14 at the time of the offenses in May, making him the first 14-year-old to be tried as an adult in Roanoke under a new law.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wanda DeWease gave the following summary of the evidence:

On the night of May 2, Harper and Anderson went to the Mountain Avenue apartment of David Chase to settle an argument he had earlier with one of Harper's relatives. The teens knocked on the door and said they were police.

When Chase opened the door, he was punched and hit in the head with a sawed-off baseball bat. The 39-year-old suffered a skull fracture and cuts and bruises.

Several hours later, at about 2 a.m., police were called to the scene of a fight at Fifth Street and Elm Avenue. They found Roger Boothe unconscious and curled in a fetal position on the sidewalk, suffering from a closed head injury and bleeding profusely from his nose, mouth and ears.

Anderson and Harper were arrested about the same time in connection with the attack on Chase. Harper was 17 at the time of the offense, but a judge ruled that both juveniles should be tried as adults.

In a statement to police that was introduced as evidence in court, Harper said he and Anderson had been approached on the street by Boothe, who first asked for drugs before making a sexual proposition. Boothe, 39, was knocked to the ground, then kicked and stomped in the head.

Harper has said that Anderson initiated the attack and struck the most blows, while an attorney for Anderson has maintained that Harper was the instigator in both attacks.

Boothe remained in a coma for about eight weeks after the attack, DeWease said. He has no memory of the attack and is unable to work because of his injuries.

"It was really a miraculous recovery, because he had been at death's door."

by CNB