THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 28, 1995 TAG: 9502280426
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WINDSOR, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Prosecutors hope to convince a jury that Charles P. Bond should be sentenced to death for the murder of a 25-year-old Portsmouth man even though Bond lay in a hospital bed about a mile away when the bullets were fired.
Bond was at the hospital seeking medical treatment for a gunshot wound to his foot when Theola Saunders, 16, allegedly shot Wayne Thomas to death last March. Prosecutors argued that Bond had told his young accomplice, ``If they give you any problems, waste them.''
``He was a counselor and the one who provided the gun,'' District Attorney David Beard argued Monday, calling Bond ``an accessory before the fact.''
Bond should be convicted of capital murder, Beard said, because ``his actions . . . contributed to the commission of the crime.''
In a trial that started Monday with jury selection, Bond, 45, of Edenton, faces charges of murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery for a rampage of terrorism nearly a year ago that began in Portsmouth and ended in this rural North Carolina town. He and Saunders alledgedly abducted Thomas and his younger sister, Leslie Dawn Thomas, 20 at the time, from their Portsmouth home following a foiled robbery attempt at a Portsmouth Pizza Hut.
Wayne Thomas, 25, in anattempt to save his pregnant sister's life, hatched a plan to jump their teenage captor and allow her to escape. But Wayne Thomas was shot three times behind the Quik Snak convenience store on U.S. Route 13-17 in Windsor. At the time, Bond was at Bertie Memorial Hospital, where he had been dropped off earlier.
If convicted, Bond could receive the death penalty for a murder that he never saw happen.
``Mr. Bond basically abandoned this plot, or conspiracy,'' argued defense attorney Samuel B. Dixon. ``He was in the hospital. He was not there at the time.''
Dixon asked Superior Court Judge Cy A. Grant Sr. Monday to strike the death penalty from consideration because Bond was not present at the time of the shooting. But Grant denied the motion, allowing prosecutors to proceed with with the case.
Under North Carolina law, Saunders cannot be given the death penalty because he is a juvenile.
Twice in the past year, the serenity of this quiet, tree-lined community of 2,200, where there are 25 law enforcement officers and about one murder a year, has been shattered by violence.
Residents of Windsor, 30 miles west of Edenton and bordered by the Roanoke and Chowan rivers, are still reeling from the unsolved triple murder that occurred June 6, 1993.
Police still have not caught the armed robbers who hid in the Be-Lo supermarket near downtown Windsor and fled with about $3,000, leaving three employees dead and two wounded.
Nine months later, violence visited Windsor again.
Police say that on March 24, Bond and Saunders abducted the Thomases in Portsmouth and forced them to join in an overnight crime spree in Wayne Thomas' car, with Thomas driving. Bond allegedly pointed a handgun at Thomas as he drove.
The crime spree took them to Suffolk, Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk and then south to Elizabeth City. When they were unable to find friends there, they headed west to Windsor. Once in Windsor, Bond told Wayne Thomas to drop him at the hospital so he could be treated for the wound sustained in the Portsmouth shootout.
He told Saunders to come back in about two hours and pick him up, prosecutors said. At that point, Bond allegedly gave Saunders money, ammunition and his .38-caliber pistol.
Police say Bond had been wounded in an exchange of gunfire with an off-duty Portsmouth police officer following the foiled robbery attempt the day before. Bond, Saunders and two other North Carolina men had allegedly come to Portsmouth to rob the Pizza Hut. The shootout occurred when the off-duty officer happened upon the robbery at 2616 Airline Blvd., where four employees were being held at gunpoint.
Less than two weeks before Thomas' murder, Bond robbed a Suffolk pawn shop, taking the pistol that was later used to kill Thomas, prosecutors said.
Saunders has been charged with murder, kidnaping, armed robbery and car theft. His trial has not been scheduled, but he has entered a plea of not guilty.
Prosecutors have called more than 40 witnesses for Bond's trial, which they say will last four to six weeks.
Bond is a convicted felon who has been imprisoned for murder and armed robbery, while Saunders was involved in an earlier shooting in Edenton, according to police.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING ROBBERY
TRIAL by CNB