THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406160469
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940616 LENGTH: NORFOLK
Then the hearing ended. Both men stood. They met in the aisle and hesitated a beat before Marion put his arm around the father's shoulder and whispered briefly in his ear.
{REST} The court ordeal is nearly over for Marion, the 49-year-old Colonial Heights bachelor attacked on Feb. 6, 1993, by a group of teenagers behind Norfolk's Omni International Hotel, where he was attending a church conference. Slammed in the head from behind with a baseball bat and robbed of $39, Marion lay in a coma for two days. The next 16 months were spent recuperating from the near-fatal injury to his brain.
``It's not really over though - maybe it never will be,'' Marion said in an interview Wednesday. ``I thought I was getting better, but then this month . . . I really began to realize what had happened. I don't have any anger against these kids, but only now have I really started to feel the pain.''
On Wednesday, Reiko Hailes - the teen who hit Marion with the bat - pleaded guilty to the robbery of Marion and two Navy men in January and February of last year. Convicted of three counts of robbery and three counts of malicious wounding, Hailes, now 16, faces a maximum sentence of three life terms plus 60 years.
Hailes was one week past his 15th birthday when he and three other boys attacked Marion. Two brothers - Immanuel, then 15, and Levon Arrington, then 18 - were convicted last year. The fate of a fourth boy, Jesse Evans, remains uncertain since the court must rule whether he is competent to stand trial. Hailes and the Arringtons will be sentenced Aug. 31.
``This is all sad,'' Marion said Wednesday. ``I know that part of what happened is because they grew up in poor neighborhoods. They should get some kind of outreach, but they should get it in jail.''
The attack shook Norfolk. Marion was attending an Episcopal church conference when he walked along the river after lunch at Waterside. Suddenly, the teenagers smashed Marion in the back of the head and he pitched forward, hitting his head on the sidewalk. The teens grabbed his wallet and ran.
After he came out of his coma and the danger passed, Marion was left with moderate brain damage. He knew who he was, but little else. He couldn't remember the attack.
``I'm a changed man,'' he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch a year after the attack. ``This whole business has just blasted me into a new reality. I've been a Christian for several years, but because of what's happened to me, my faith is becoming a whole lot stronger.''
There has been a series of roller-coaster highs and lows for Marion as the cases progressed. As his faith deepened, he became more deeply involved in a charismatic ``healing group'' at his church. But last June he broke up with a woman he had been seeing for a year and a half. Then, in November, he lost his job as a technical writer. He currently has no income, but said he will begin to draw long-term disability payments in a few weeks.
``Up until a month ago, I thought a type of closure was taking place,'' he said. ``But now, sometimes, I don't want to get up. I just lay in bed and think, `Why did this all happen? Why did I even walk by the river that day?'
``Then I start to pray. `Why, God?' I ask. `Why do I have to go through this hell?' I just sit and talk.
``I thought I'd cried all I could, but within the last month it's just been worse. It's like a waterfall - I just open up inside.''
{KEYWORDS} ASSAULT TRIAL ROBBERY
by CNB