ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 23, 1996 TAG: 9611260135
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HILLSVILLE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
A 44-year-old North Carolina man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the fatal shootings last year of his sister-in-law and her husband.
Dennis Stoneman, 44, of Surry County, N.C., was charged with capital murder in the deaths of Tina Hill Quesenberry, 33, and James Steven Quesenberry, 44, on the night of May 16, 1995, in the Westview Terrace Apartments parking lot in Hillsville.
The couple had been helping Tina Quesenberry's half-sister, Theresa Stoneman, move into one of the apartments. Theresa Stoneman is the defendant's estranged wife.
Steven Quesenberry had owned and operated the Sports Shop in Pulaski County before the couple moved to Carroll County. He was a YMCA program director in Pulaski, and a graduate of Pulaski County High School where he was on the football, track and basketball teams.
It took all day Monday to seat a jury because of publicity in the case in Carroll County. The jury found him guilty Wednesday, with a sentencing hearing following Thursday.
Witnesses at the apartments testified to hearing an argument in the parking lot followed by three shots. An autopsy showed that Steven Quesenberry had been shot twice in the head and Tina Quesenberry, once.
A witness who saw the shootings from an apartment window said that a boy - later identified as Tina Quesenberry's 6-year-old son, who had been in the back seat - ran from the Quesenberry car to the apartments calling for help and saying his "Uncle Dennis" had shot his parents.
Stoneman asked the jury for the death penalty, because, he said, he no longer had the will to live since his son had testified against him.
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines KEYWORDS: 2DAby CNB