TESTIMONY TO BEGIN TODAY IN TAZEWELL COUNTY TRIPLE MURDER TRIAL

ABINGDON -- A prominent politician in a once-vibrant coal town gave the
order that led to a triple killing to protect his drug-trafficking
business, a federal prosecutor told a jury here Wednesday.

The prosecutor alleged that Samuel Stephen "Sam" Ealy was one of the men
who carried out that order 13 years ago in the Tazewell County hamlet of
Pocahontas.

"You are going to hear statements Sam Ealy made to numerous individuals in
which he admitted involvement (in the killings)," Assistant U.S. Attorney
Tony Giorno told jurors Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court here.

Ealy, 39, sat impassively as Giorno accused him of taking part in the
killings of Robert Davis and his wife, Una Mae Davis, both 32, and her
disabled 14-year-old son Robert "Bobby" Hopewell Jr.

But Ealy's lawyer, Tom Scott, told jurors his client was being framed by
jailhouse snitches and incompetent investigators.

"Most of (the prosecution witnesses) are in jail," he said. "They want to
get out of jail. They either hope for or have gotten some kind of reward.
The evidence will show they are liars for hire."

Giorno and Scott made those remarks in their opening statements to the
nine-woman, seven-man jury chosen Wednesday morning to decide Ealy's fate.
Four of the jurors are alternates who will serve only if one of the dozen
regular jurors is excused.

Ealy and another man, Walter L. "Pete" Church, 46, are charged with
conspiring to kill Robert Davis to protect a continuing criminal
enterprise. Each man also faces six murder charges -- two for each of the
three killed.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both men; Church is scheduled
to be tried separately in September.

The trial is the second one for Ealy, who was acquitted of murder charges
in a state courtroom in Tazewell County more than a decade ago. During that
trial, Ealy's lawyers blamed the killing on Church and claimed
investigators botched the case.

Much of the evidence outlined Wednesday by prosecutors and the defense
mirrored that introduced in the earlier trial. It included a detailed
account of the drug-dealing business allegedly linked to the killings.

Robert Davis was the trusted "right-hand man" of convicted drug kingpin
Charles Wesley "Charlie" Gilmore, Giorno told jurors.

Gilmore, who once was a county supervisor and a town mayor, ran a
million-dollar cocaine and marijuana business out of a convenience store
called the Totem Post for more than a decade, Giorno said.

The drug ring supplied illicit narcotics to much of southern West Virginia
and neighboring parts of Southwest Virginia, he said.

But in early 1989, the law was catching up with Gilmore -- who had just
received a letter telling him he was the target of a federal grand jury
probe in West Virginia, Giorno said.

"The noose was felt by Robert Davis as well," the prosecutor said. "It
would just be a matter of time before Robert Davis was interviewed, and
Robert Davis certainly could spill the beans."

Davis never got the chance to talk to federal investigators before he was
gunned down outside his Merrick Lane home. Una Davis and her son were
killed to eliminate them as potential witnesses, Giorno said.

Gilmore ordered Ealy and Church, both of whom dealt drugs for him, to kill
Robert Davis, Giorno said.

The prosecutor went on to outline scientific evidence he said links Ealy's
car to the crime scene. The state court jury never heard that evidence
because a judge ruled that investigators found it illegally.

Other new evidence unearthed since the first trial involved statements
Giorno said Ealy made that incriminated himself.

"He had beaten the charges. ... He felt there was nothing they could do to
him," the prosecutor said. "He talked freely to these people and he
admitted he and Pete Church went to the home of Robert Davis at the urging
of Charlie Gilmore."

The jury heard a somewhat different story from Scott, the defense attorney,
who did not contradict the prosecution's account of Gilmore's drug business
but did deny his client's involvement in the slayings.

"There are two tragedies in this case -- the first of which are the deaths
of Robert Davis, Una Davis and Bobby Hopewell. The second is the
prosecution of Sam Ealy on false charges of conspiracy and murder," he said.

Ealy, a former high school football player who worked as a heavy-equipment
welder, spent most of the weekend of the killings drinking beer at his
friends' homes and at a local saloon called The Cricket, Scott said.

Witnesses will testify he was too drunk to have carried out the killings,
the attorney said.

"Mr. Ealy didn't live at the foot of the cross," Scott said. "Mr. Ealy has
been convicted of theft crimes and alcohol-related offenses, but,
significantly, he has never been convicted of any crimes of violence."

Instead, Scott suggested that Ealy's estranged older brother, John Mark,
might be involved in the crimes and might have forced a younger brother to
lie to police to cover his involvement.

The lawyer also downplayed the importance of the scientific evidence
linking Ealy's car to the crime scene.

"The question for you to consider is not whether Mr. Ealy's car was there
but whether Mr. Ealy himself was there," Scott told jurors. "He was not."

Ealy has pleaded not guilty. He was being held in federal custody pending
the outcome of the trial.

Testimony is set to begin at 9 a.m. today.