DESPITE BRIGHT LIVES, DRUGS AND DANGEROUS CHOICES KILL

Some Ambitious HU Students Encounter The Dark Side Of What Police Say Are
Drug-related Shootings.

HAMPTON -- Five students left their homes along the East Coast four years
ago to enroll at Hampton University, one of the nation's oldest and most
prestigious historically black colleges.

Mostly they came from upper-middle-class families headed by doctors,
lawyers, chemists and dentists. One student had an academic scholarship.
They had attended private high schools, volunteered at hospitals and
participated in internships over their summer vacations.

Little from their backgrounds would have predicted how their lives would
unfold over this past year. There was nothing on the surface to suggest any
of them would end up selling drugs. There was nothing to indicate they'd
ever feel the need to carry a weapon for protection.

But somewhere along the way, dangerous choices were made, relationships
formed and boundaries crossed.

In the last year, two of the five were shot to death, one is recovering
from being hit by several bullets, and two are in jail in connection with
the crimes.

Police said they believe both shootings were drug-related, though no drugs
were found at the first shooting. In that incident, police believe the
victim was mistaken for someone who may have had drugs or money on them. In
the second shooting, a small amount of marijuana was found in the victim's
off-campus apartment.

The events that led to the shootings are unclear. Prosecutors say they are
still trying to figure out how the intersection of these five lives fits
into a larger mosaic of small-time drug dealers and their associates.

The dean of students at Hampton University said he has been "at his wits
end" trying to figure out what happened among these seemingly ambitious
undergraduates.

"The concern I have - and I'm sure society shares - is that to the very
small percentage of students involved with drugs or guns," human lives
aren't all that important, said Bennie G. McMorris, Jr., the dean of
students. "I cannot blame it on TV violence, video games, rap music or BET.
It's just a decision people make."

Predominantly black universities need to reach out to students in different
ways in order to stem a descent into dangerous behavior, said Robert E.
Millette, a sociology professor at Lincoln University, a historically black
school in Pennsylvania. Millette has studied leadership roles at
predominantly black colleges and universities.

He said Hampton University is known for its strong academics and visionary
attitudes toward learning, but schools need to go beyond that.

"We teach them one thing in the classroom, but when they go back to the
dorm," or their apartments, Millette said, "it is a completely different
culture."

At least two of the five students were close friends. Christopher Weaver
arrived in Hampton from Baltimore full of promise four years ago. He'd been
an Eagle Scout and was an altar boy at his Episcopal church back home.

He met Georgia native Kevin McVay, now 22, during orientation in 2000 and
the two became friends. Both had attended private high schools before
coming to HU. McVay was at HU on an academic scholarship.

Also during orientation, Weaver, known on campus as Dread for his long
dreadlocks, and McVay met fellow student Saadi Bailey. Bailey and McVay
were both from Decatur, Ga., and had family members who knew each other.

Bailey, now 21, and McVay had grown up six miles apart but didn't know each
other until meeting at HU. Bailey's aunt and uncle lived next door to McVay
and his mother.

Weaver and McVay were never close friends with Bailey, authorities said,
but they ran in the same crowds and saw each other often at parties or
other social events. Bailey and McVay even shared Christmas dinner together
at Bailey's aunt's home in Georgia.

Bailey became friendly with another student named John Bivens IV from
Maryland, but its unclear to police how well, if at all, Bivens knew Weaver
and McVay.

The fifth player in these events probably didn't know any of the other four
students, police said.

On the evening of Oct. 23, 2003, 21-year-old Michael Wayne Kennedy Jr. was
shot and killed as he walked out the door of his off-campus apartment. The
apartment, one of three in a converted two-story house on County Street, is
about a quarter of a mile from the HU campus.

Kennedy's roommate heard the shots and found him face down in the foyer
between the bottom of the stairway and the door. Police believe Kennedy was
killed by mistake in an apparent drug robbery. Authorities have found no
link between the junior computer science major from Washington, D.C. and
his assailants.

In July, police charged Bailey with killing Kennedy.

In addition to Bailey, police charged longtime Hampton resident Brandon
Hicks, who is 33, with Kennedy's death. The connection between these two
men is unclear to police.

About six months later, another HU student was shot to death, and Bailey
was also charged with that murder.

On April 7, Weaver was celebrating his girlfriend's birthday at his
off-campus apartment when he was shot three times and killed.

The senior political science major from Baltimore had graduated from the
Gilman School, an all-boys prep high school. He had an impressive
extracurricular record, having been a volunteer with HIV patients and a
mentor to young students.

But police say the men who shot Weaver, who was 22, entered his apartment
for one reason - to steal drugs from him.

On that night, McVay was at the apartment, lounging on the floor, while
Weaver and his girlfriend were in a back bedroom watching television.

That's when he heard a knock at the door, and Weaver's roommate went to
answer it.

"We thought it was our friend who decided to come back," McVay said.

As he cracked open the door, two men wearing ski masks and toting handguns
burst in.

"They ... put a gun in my face and told me to stay on the floor," McVay said.

McVay said he didn't recognize either gunmen, but one was tall and the
other short and stocky. The shorter man carried what appeared to be a
.22-caliber pistol and the other man had what appeared to be a large
"Uzi-type semiautomatic pistol," McVay said.

He remembers the gunmen asking for Weaver by name. He heard them ask Weaver
for something. He said he knew Weaver sold marijuana and assumed the gunmen
wanted drugs.

"The next thing I knew I was hearing gunshots," McVay said. That's when he
tried to make a run for it. He said he could feel the bullets tear into his
back as he ran for the door.

He collapsed after the third bullet entered. He later learned the bullets
passed through his vertebra, small intestine, lung, liver and left arm.

McVay blacked out and woke up in the hospital. He spent three days at
Riverside Regional Medical Center's intensive care unit. While there, his
friend was buried in Baltimore. The intruders had shot Weaver in the chest.
About a week and a half after he was released from the hospital, McVay
bumped into Bailey. Their conversation was cordial.

"He expressed his condolences, asked me how I was doing and let me know if
I ever needed him for anything to call," McVay said. He gave Bailey a ride
to his girlfriend's house.

At that time, Hampton police had not connected Bailey to the shootings.

"I had no idea he was involved until a friend called me after he read it in
the newspaper about two weeks later," McVay said.

In addition to Bailey's arrest, police charged Bivens of Randallston, Md.,
and Hampton residents William Bruce Lee, 21, and Dion Lamont Holley, 32.
It's unclear what, if any, connection the Hampton residents have with the
college students.

Bailey, McVay and Bivens were thrown out of school because of their
connection to the homicides and other offenses. Hampton University has a
no-tolerance policy when it comes to those who use guns or drugs, said
McMorris, the dean of students.

New students are told during orientation that if they're caught with guns
or drugs on or off campus, they're going to get kicked out, McMorris added.

"It's disheartening to someone who understands the value of higher
education to see a young life ruined because of a student's involvement in
guns or drugs," he said.

But when they came to HU and even after, the five young men still seemed
headed in the right direction - at least for a while.

HU awarded McVay a presidential scholarship for his superior work in high
school and SAT scores of about 1,220.

He graduated near the top of his class at Westminster School, a private,
coed, college prep school in Atlanta.

McVay excelled academically during his years at HU, too. He made the Dean's
List every semester and would have graduated cum laude.

Weaver, a Special Olympics lifeguard, was majoring in political science.

Bivens had considered going into banking. He had no criminal record before
he was charged with Weaver's death.

Kennedy was a computer science major who had taken a year off but was back
in school when, police say, he was killed by mistake.

Bailey, who grew up in a suburb of Atlanta, was a bright kid, his relatives
say. His parents, who both went to college, were expecting great things
from him at HU.

All three Hampton residents charged in the crimes - none of them HU
students - are convicted felons. Police are trying to figure out how these
men may have been connected to the students.

Although Bailey started college with Weaver and McVay, he didn't get as far
in school.

McMorris said Bailey's problems at HU began his freshman year, and the
school "took steps to deal with him."

Bailey was suspended twice in 2002, first for misconduct and then for
academic reasons, HU officials said. According to court documents, by 2002
he already had convictions for breaking into a dorm room and stealing a
laptop computer. When he was convicted, he was working at the university
cafeteria.

While living off campus in Hampton, Bailey wracked up a number of
convictions for traffic violations, such as driving 61 miles per hour in a
35-mph zone. But before his murder charges, he had no convictions for
violent crimes.

Hampton lawyer Tim Clancy, who is representing Bailey, said he thinks he
knows who shot McVay and Weaver, and it wasn't his client. He wouldn't say
who he suspects.

"From Saadi's perspective, he comes from an excellent family and certainly
would not be expected to participate in such aberrant behavior," Clancy said.

After his arrest, Bailey's uncle, Frank C. Franklin, the man who lived next
door to McVay's family, said the incident disturbed both families.

Bailey's mother and father - a legal assistant and a retired chemist -
declined to be interviewed for this story.

"Saadi was a beautiful kid," Franklin said, adding that he often thought he
would have liked to switch places with his nephew who had "the whole world
ahead of him."

But something happened along the way in Bailey's journey.

"Young kids are doing drugs, even kids from good families, kids in
college," Franklin said. "Hampton college is sort of a prestigious black
university, and they are doing drugs over there."

McMorris denies that drug use among HU students is widespread.

"Hampton University is not a haven for drug use," he said. "Those young men
who were involved in those activities all lived off campus. The university
cannot stop people from doing stupid things."

Bivens' family could not be located by the Daily Press and did not attend a
recent hearing to determine whether the former student would be released on
bail. His lawyer, Kenneth Melvin, did not return phone calls. Once
arrested, Bivens was suspended from the university.

In court, Melvin said authorities don't believe Bivens was the shooter, so
that leaves the question: Who shot Weaver, McVay and Kennedy?

Police and officials from the Hampton Commonwealth Attorney's office won't
give specifics about who they think did the shooting. But that detail may
be irrelevant to a conviction. In Virginia, a person doesn't have to pull
the trigger to be charged with and convicted of murder.

"You can be the getaway driver or the lookout," said prosecutor Matt
Hoffman, "and be just as guilty of the principal offense, whether it's a
murder or robbery."

Since the shootings, McVay, the only shooting victim who survived, has gone
home to Georgia and is figuring out what to do with the rest of his life.

Before he left the area, a Hampton police officer arrested him on suspicion
of driving drunk in February before Weaver's death. The officer who stopped
him at a fast-food restaurant noticed a pistol on the floorboard of McVay's
Acura SUV and charged him with having a concealed weapon. He was also
charged with possession of marijuana.

McVay said he decided last summer to buy a .45-caliber pistol for protection.

"My mother and brother had both been robbed and our house was twice
burglarized," he said. "My best friend's brother was almost shot, and two
of his friends were shot at Howard that year, and Hampton didn't have the
best reputation."

He was with his mother when he bought the pistol at a gun show.

"I wish I didn't have to buy a gun," McVay said, "but I felt I would be
safer with it than without it because of everything that had been going on."

He was convicted of the DUI charge and fined $355. For the remaining
charges, the judge won't make a decision until 2005.

A couple days after his arrest, McVay received a letter from HU, notifying
him that he was permanently suspended for violating a school policy that
prohibits a student from having drugs or a firearm on or off campus.

He would have graduated with honors in May.

Kennedy, just a year shy of graduation, was buried in a private ceremony in
Washington, D.C.

A scholarship fund has been set up in Chris Weaver's name to help other
students get the education he never will.

Bailey and Bivens are in jail awaiting trial for murder. If convicted, they
could spend the rest of their lives in prison.