DATE: Saturday, June 14, 1997               TAG: 9706140263

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   55 lines

JUROR IN NORFOLK DEATH CASE RECALLS GRUELING DECISION

For those on the outside looking in, the question of whether a convicted killer should live or die is often answered swiftly. But for those who actually make the judgment, the decision is not easy or painless.

``It's so final that it's a very difficult thing to do,'' said Kathryn T. Creeth, 53, of Norfolk. ``Until you've done it, until you've been seated on a jury, I don't think you can understand how difficult it is.''

Creeth, a nursing home administrator, was forewoman of the jury that found Derek R. Barnabei guilty of the 1993 rape and murder of Old Dominion University student Sarah J. Wisnosky, a 17-year-old freshman from Lynchburg.

The jurors in that 1995 trial recommended death and the judge agreed, marking the first time in 16 years that a death sentence had been handed down in Norfolk.

As another jury recommended death Friday for Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing, Creeth said she understood what members of that panel were experiencing.

``People are often very quick to judge and to pronounce a sentence - `I would do this' or `I would kill the person' - but until you have lived, breathed and gone through a trial like that, you have no idea how much it affects you . . . or how much you are affecting so many other people's lives.''

When the death sentence was imposed on Barnabei, Judge William F. Rutherford told the families of both the victim and the condemned that the ruling would ``not alter the lasting hell you will be living in from this point forward.''

Creeth said the jurors understood.

``I felt such a sadness for the families, for both families,'' she said. ``You cannot help it. When you sit in a courtroom during a trial, you're looking out at the families. You're looking at the people who were involved. It did not affect the decision I made - there was overwhelming evidence - but it affected the way we felt about it afterwards. . . . It took a long time to get over it.''

And even two years later, the memories can rush back at any time, as fresh and as painful as in the days of the trial.

``Whenever there is a case like with Tim McVeigh, and you hear about juries that are making those decisions, it comes back,'' Creeth said. ``You try to forget about it. But it never leaves your mind.''

Still, ``I didn't have any second-guessing,'' Creeth said. ``I don't think there is ever a comfort level other than that you have protected society from that particular person ever doing something like that again.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Derek R. Barnabei was sentenced to death in 1995 after his rape and

murder conviction in Norfolk. KEYWORDS: DEATH PENALTY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

MURDER TRIAL CONVICTION

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