
DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997            TAG: 9710010461

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  110 lines

FACEOFF SHAPES UP AT WHEATON TRIAL PRIOR DEFENDANT PULLED TRIGGER, TEEN'S ATTORNEY CLAIMS IN COURT

Nearly two months ago, four eyewitnesses testified that 19-year-old James W. Waters Jr. was the person who fatally shot Kellam High School student Timothy M. Wheaton in the Landstown Meadows subdivision last January.

That testimony came during the first-degree murder trial of Richard Ethan Hollingsworth, the first person tried and convicted for murder in the Wheaton shooting.

On Tuesday, an attorney representing Waters told a Circuit Court jury that it was all a lie. It was Hollingsworth, not Waters, who pulled the trigger of the gun that fatally shot Wheaton, the attorney said.

``Mr. Waters is not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Timothy Wheaton,'' said Virginia Beach lawyer Arthur C. Ermlich Jr. ``The person who is has already been convicted.''

Waters faces a possible life sentence if convicted in the trial, which began with jury selection on Monday. The trial also will decide the fate of 17-year-old Monica Oliver, the third teen to be tried for Wheaton's murder. Oliver also is charged with first-degree murder.

In addition, both Waters and Oliver are charged with attempted malicious wounding and a weapons violation stemming from an earlier shooting on the day Wheaton was killed. Waters also is charged with a second weapons violation, conspiracy to commit a felony, and wearing a mask in public.

It may be Oliver's videotaped statement, made to Virginia Beach Police in January and ruled admissible by Circuit Judge Thomas S. Shadrick on Tuesday, that will be critical in sabotaging Waters' story.

During the statement Oliver tells how she drove while Waters reached out a car window and shot Wheaton once in the chest. Oliver also tells police in the statement that Hollingsworth was in the back seat of the car when the drive-by shooting took place.

Hollingsworth, convicted of first-degree murder in August, will be sentenced on Oct. 8.

Wheaton, 17, was with two friends near his home when the car carrying Waters, Oliver and Hollingsworth stopped next to him and his companions early on the evening of Jan. 25.

After a brief conversation with the occupants of the car, Wheaton was shot. He ran about 40 feet before collapsing in the street. Wheaton, a soccer star at Kellam, died at the scene.

The Wheaton shooting was the second that day by Oliver, Waters and Hollingsworth, said prosecutor Greg Underwood during his opening statement on Tuesday.

Both shootings were ``revenge motivated,'' Underwood explained.

During the first shooting, Underwood said, the trio was helping Hollingsworth's girlfriend, 17-year-old Stephanie Grace Wall, seek retribution against several youths who briefly assaulted Hollingsworth near Wall's mother's home in Virginia Beach earlier in the day on Jan. 25.

Hollingsworth testified on Tuesday that Wall was so outraged about the assault that she immediately visited Waters to seek his help.

After talking to Waters, Wall came back to the car where Hollingsworth and Oliver were waiting.

``She said James will take care of it,'' Hollingsworth testified.

Later that day Oliver and Hollingsworth took Wall to work and went to pick up Waters, who was carrying a loaded handgun. Their intention, Hollingsworth said, was to seek revenge against the youths who had assaulted him earlier in the day.

``Everybody knew what was up,'' he testified Tuesday.

What Oliver and Hollingsworth did not know was that Waters also wanted to seek revenge for another incident that had involved one of his friends several days before, Hollingsworth testified.

They drove by the location in the neighborhood of Magic Hollow where the assault on Hollingsworth took place and fired a shot in the direction of some youths standing on the corner. Then they headed for Landstown Meadows to look for Waters' target.

Hollingsworth said he thought they were leaving the subdivision when the trio passed Wheaton and his friends. But Waters mistook Wheaton for the youth he was seeking and ordered Oliver to stop the car.

After an exchange of words that suddenly got tense, Hollingsworth said, Waters stuck his gun out of the car window.

``Two seconds later I saw a flash from the muzzle,'' Hollingsworth testified.

The three youths eventually picked up Wall and another youth, went on a shopping spree and then headed for a vacation cottage owned by a relative of Hollingsworth in Long Beach, N.C. They were arrested the next day.

Wall was tried, convicted and sentenced for her part in the incidents surrounding Wheaton's murder earlier this year in juvenile court. She is being detained within the state's juvenile justice system and may not be released until her 21st birthday.

Oliver's case was transferred to adult court. Her attorney, J. Brian Donnelly, told the jury on Tuesday that his client was a ``typical teen-ager'' who was motivated chiefly by fear when she realized that she got ``caught up in this and can't get out.''

``It does not mean that prior to the shooting of this boy, Timothy Wheaton, that she knew he was going to be shot,'' Donnelly said. ``As far as murder, she did not do it.''

Testimony in the joint trial will continue today. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos

NHAT MEYER/The Virginian-Pilot

DEFENDANT: JAMES WATERS

Waters' attorney says Ethan Hollingsworth shot and killed Timothy

Wheaton. Waters faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

PROSECUTION WITNESS: ETHAN HOLLINGSWORTH

Hollingsworth demonstrates how Waters reached out of a car window

to shoot Wheaton. ``Two seconds later I saw a flash from the

muzzle.''

Photo

NHAT MEYER/The Virginian-Pilot

Monica Oliver, a teen-ager on trial in the fatal shooting of Timothy