DATE: Thursday, March 20, 1997              TAG: 9703200497

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   83 lines

RAPIST-KILLER FACES TWO LIFE SENTENCES TEEN IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR PAROLE FOR ``ONE OF THE MOST BRUTAL AND SENSELESS CRIMES.''

Calling the rape and murder of Amber M. Zajac ``one of the most brutal and senseless crimes this community has ever seen,'' a Circuit Court judge on Wednesday sentenced her 19-year-old killer, Kevin S. Painter, to two life terms in prison.

Painter sat quietly in his orange jailhouse jumpsuit while Judge John K. Moore announced that he was accepting the sentence recommended by a jury during a four-day trial in January, during which Painter was convicted of first-degree murder and rape. He is not eligible for parole.

Zajac's death, Moore said, ``is a graphic illustration of the worst fears of every mother and father.''

Moore told Painter that he was delivering the stiff sentence, which exceeded the state guidelines, because ``throughout the trial and again today you have displayed no acceptance for committing those crimes and no remorse whatsoever for committing those crimes.''

The victim's father, Joe Zajac, expressed the same sentiment when he read a prepared statement to the court.

``Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and without remorse, he has insisted upon his innocence of Amber's rape and murder,'' Zajac said. ``To me, his claim of consensual sex and leaving her unharmed is his final assault upon my daughter and her honor.''

According to evidence presented during the trial, the 17-year-old Zajac was returning to her home in the Redwing subdivision in Virginia Beach on the night of Aug. 7, 1995, when Painter approached her at a nearby 7-Eleven store.

Painter, according to witnesses, was pushing his bike as he walked alongside Zajac when she entered a wooded area that separates Redwing and another subdivision, Derby Run.

That was the last time Zajac was seen alive.

Susan Hopkins, the girlfriend of Zajac's father, found Amber Zajac's body early the next morning, lying next to a path that winds through the woods she entered with Painter.

Zajac was partially nude with her skirt around her ankles. The strap to her purse was wrapped around her neck and had been used to strangle her. Zajac also had been sexually assaulted.

Initially, police thought someone else had raped and killed the Ocean Lakes High School senior.

Kenneth N. Pallett, 23, was originally charged with first-degree murder and rape in the case and jailed for more than a month. But DNA analysis of semen found in Zajac's body eventually cleared Pallett, even though he had confessed to the crime.

Pallett testified during Painter's trial that he made up a story that implicated himself as the killer so that police would stop interrogating him.

After DNA tests showed that Painter's semen was found in Zajac's body, he was arrested Jan. 11, 1996, at a Norfolk vocational school he was attending.

Although Painter first denied having sex with Zajac, he later claimed that he and Zajac had consensual sex just off the pathway where Zajac's body was found. He said the two then got dressed and went their separate ways.

Painter claimed that someone else must have killed Zajac after she and Painter parted.

During the trial, however, evidence showed that Zajac's underwear contained no semen stains, despite Painter's statement to police that he saw Zajac put her underwear on after the two had sex.

Prosecutor Shepherd D. Wainger claimed this proved that Zajac never got dressed after she and Painter had sex. It helped show, Wainger said, that Painter raped Zajac and then strangled her with his hands and her purse strap.

Evidence presented by the medical examiner during Painter's trial showed that bruising on Zajac's thighs was likely caused by someone forcing Zajac's thighs apart before she died.

Theresa Berry, Painter's attorney, pleaded for leniency, claiming that Painter's life had been troubled and that he had never been convicted of a crime previously. Berry said Painter had been shuffled between relatives throughout his life and never had a positive male role model.

Judge Moore called these arguments ``not very persuasive.''

After the sentencing, Painter's grandmother, Roseanna Clark, embraced Joe Zajac as the slain girl's father tearfully left the courtroom.

Clark apologized for the actions of her grandson.

``I wasn't there and neither was anyone else,'' Clark said. ``But if he did it, I am so sorry for them.'' ILLUSTRATION: The death of 17-year-old Amber M. Zajac, the judge

said, ``is a graphic illustration of the worst fears of every mother

and father.'' KEYWORDS: SENTENCING MURDER TRIAL

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu