He Says Family Killed To Eliminate Witnesses

PROSECUTOR DESCRIBES MOTIVES IN 3 KILLINGS

If convicted on the federal charges, Samuel Stephen Ealy could be
sentenced to death.

ABINGDON - "Pocahontas is a small town, and you can't afford to leave
any witnesses," federal prosecutor Tony Giorno told the jury seated
here Wednesday.

That was one of the motives for the slayings of three Tazewell County
family members more than 13 years ago, the prosecutor said.

Over the next three weeks, a 12-person jury will determine whether
Samuel Stephen Ealy, 38, is accountable for those three killings.

Prosecutors say the town's mayor, who was running a drug ring, asked
Ealy to kill Robert Davis because the mayor feared the man would
testify against him - and they say Ealy then killed Davis' wife and
her son because they witnessed Davis' slaying.

This case shines a spotlight on the tiny town of 500 residents, where
drugs replaced coal as the main business and young men such as Ealy
and Davis, with few other prospects, got caught up in their thrall in
the 1980s.

The case is unusual in another way: Ealy was twice arrested on state
charges in connection with the slaying of the Davis family but was
acquitted in 1991. Prosecutors say his current trial on federal
charges does not constitute "double jeopardy" - being tried twice for
the same crime - because there's no legal bar to trying the case in
separate legal sovereignties: state and federal.

Robert and Una Mae Davis, both 32, and her son from a previous
marriage, 14-year-old Robert Hopewell, were shot to death April 16,
1989, at their home.

Giorno said in his opening statements that Ealy and another man -
Walter LeFight "Pete" Church of West Virginia - killed the family at
the request of then-mayor Charles Wesley Gilmore. If convicted, Ealy
and Church could be sentenced to death on the three counts of murder
in connection with a continuing criminal enterprise. Their cases are
the only pending federal death penalty cases in the Western District
of Virginia.

In addition to his civic duties, Gilmore ran a drug ring he called
"the company," Giorno said. Gilmore asked Ealy and Church to kill
Davis because Gilmore knew he was under investigation and he
suspected that Davis, his "right-hand man," was cooperating with law
enforcement authorities, Giorno said.

Church is scheduled to be tried on the same charges in September and
also faces the death penalty.

Grundy attorney Tom Scott, who helped win Ealy's acquittal in the
state trial, said in his opening statement that Ealy was too drunk
that night to have committed the slayings. Scott also said no
physical evidence links Ealy to the crime scene. He also said that
much of the testimony against Ealy would come from witnesses who have
changed their stories repeatedly and are convicted felons or were
drunk or high on drugs when they claimed to have heard Ealy
implicating himself.

One man interested in implicating Ealy was his own brother, John Mark
Ealy, Scott suggested. Sam Ealy was having an affair with John Mark
Ealy's wife, Bertha, and married her after Bertha and John Mark Ealy
divorced.

The jury would likely hear evidence about "incest and adultery and
drugs," Scott predicted, activities he repeatedly said he did not
condone but said they did not add up to murder. Giorno linked Ealy's
life to the former coal mining capital - and Pocahontas' change in
fortune.

During the boom of coal mining, Pocahontas boasted 23 churches - and
30 saloons, Giorno said. The downturn in the coal industry left a
void - a vacuum that was filled by drug trafficking run by the town's
mayor, Giorno said.

Gilmore, who traveled to Florida to meet with cocaine connections,
had underlings do the transporting and selling of cocaine and
marijuana, Giorno said.

Gilmore's right-hand man was Robert Davis, Giorno said. Davis dealt
drugs and often kept drugs and money for Gilmore at his house, Giorno
said.

In early April 1989, Gilmore learned he was under federal
investigation. (He was later convicted of being a drug kingpin and
sentenced to 11 years in federal prison). Gilmore suspected that
Davis, who had told people he wanted to get out of the drug business,
was cooperating with authorities, Giorno said. Gilmore then asked
Ealy and Church to kill Davis, Giorno said. They killed his wife and
her son to cover their tracks, Giorno said.

The prosecution can place Ealy's car, a 1977 baby-blue Ford LTD, at
the scene of the slayings, Giorno said. Tire tracks through gravel
and dirt where Robert Davis' blood had seeped after he was shot twice
outside his house matched the treads on Ealy's car, Giorno said. The
DNA of blood found on the car's door also matched Davis' DNA, Giorno
said. Parts of a broken taillight found outside the Davis home and
blue paint chips on a stone wall on the narrow lane outside the
Davis' house also matched Ealy's car, Giorno said.

Scott, who is representing Ealy with Roanoke attorney Tom Blaylock,
responded in his opening statement that he did not dispute that
Ealy's car was at the scene of the slayings. But he said no physical
evidence linked Ealy himself to the crime scene. Ealy has no prior
convictions from violent crimes, Scott said, only for theft and
infractions involving drunkenness.

Scott also attacked witness testimony he anticipated from Ealy's
half-brother, Brian Burnopp. In the state trial, Burnopp testified
that Ealy had taken his 12-gauge shotgun and shells just before the
slayings. Scott questioned Wednesday why a man who had planned murder
would take a shotgun that would have to be reloaded after every shot,
when Burnopp also had semi-automatic weapons. The 12-gauge shotgun
has never been found, but Giorno said he had evidence that Ealy had
cut the gun up and thrown the remnants into a creek.

Scott also questioned the veracity of local law enforcement officials
in the case over not admitting to discrepancies in witness accounts
and not obtaining a warrant to search Ealy's car the day after the
slayings.