ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300108
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER|
MEMO: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
After more than four hours of deliberation Monday, a Bedford County jury found Joe Gardner Bolling guilty of second-degree murder in the June shooting death of his live-in girlfriend, Torina Lynn Wright.
The all-white jury of eight men and four women recommended that Bolling, who is black, be sentenced to 27 years in prison and a $30,000 fine for murder and three years for a related firearm charge.
Bedford County Circuit Judge William Sweeney agreed with the verdict and ordered a pre-sentence report. No sentencing date has been set. Bolling was taken into custody.
A crucial issue in the trial was whether Bolling, a 48-year-old furniture worker, intended to shoot and kill Wright or whether his gun misfired.
Wright, a 27-year-old nurse, told rescue workers shortly before she died that the shooting was a mistake.
```It was an accident' - those were the last words she said," said Beth Baker, a Bedford Life Saving Crew emergency medical technician.
But Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Krantz, successfully prosecuting his first murder case, said the shooting was anything but accidental.
"Torina Wright is the kind of person, even while she's screaming, `Please don't let me die,' she's thinking about protecting Joe Bolling," Krantz said in closing arguments.
"That's more than you can say for him."
Weeks before the shooting, Wright's grandmother testified, Bolling had threatened "to fill her butt with bullets."
"And you just happened to hit her right where you said you were going to shoot, isn't that right?'' Krantz asked. Bolling shot Wright in the left buttock.
On the day of the shooting, Bolling's friends testified, Bolling had been drinking and said that he wanted Wright out of his house.
That night, according to court testimony, Wright accused Bolling of being unfaithful. At the time, Bolling and Wright had been living together for about two years at Bolling's house off Virginia 718 and had two children together.
Bolling denied having an affair and told Wright to get out of his house. She did, but came back a few minutes later. The two argued again, and as Bolling testified Monday, he intentionally took a loaded .44-caliber pistol from a linen closet.
"I pulled it out to scare her or something," he said.
Exactly what happened next was what jurors had to decide.
Wright bled to death after a bullet entered her left buttock and severed a major artery as it exited her abdomen. She was unarmed and trying to leave the house through the kitchen door when she was shot.
Bolling testified that the gun misfired after it slipped from his grip, and though he said he had threatened her with guns a couple of times before, he said he did not intend to shoot. However, he contradicted himself to police, saying at first that he pulled the gun from its holster and later saying it fell out of the holster.
A firearm expert for the defense testified that the gun was faulty, could be fired with the safety on, and had a hair trigger. A doctor testifying for the defense said an industrial accident years ago had left Bolling's right thumb immobile and unable to cock a gun.
However, Krantz demonstrated to the jury that Bolling could have cocked the pistol with the flat of his hand. And, under cross-examination, the firearm expert admitted that he had only been able to fire the gun with the safety on once in three tries, and then only after he manipulated the chamber into place to ensure that it would fire.
Krantz said that Bolling, a Vietnam veteran and hunter, had firearm training and knew the consequences of his action when he pointed a loaded gun at Wright.
"When a person picks up a loaded gun and introduces it into a situation where a gun is not called for, that person is legally and morally responsible for what happens," the prosecutor said.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB