TRIAL FOCUSES ON DRUG SUBCULTURE

Testimony In Case Involving Penn's Murder Resumes On Monday

Jarring tales of drug use and violence by students at a small college.

Testimony about lockboxes stuffed with hundreds and even thousands of
dollars and derringers and other handguns.

And murder, with one drug dealer allegedly shooting another.

It sounds like a Hollywood script, but the setting is Fairmont, home to
6,000-plus students at Fairmont State College.

A Marion County jury of five men and seven women is hearing from a
mini-parade of fresh-faced collegians.

They are friends and acquaintances of the suspect -- Mark Byrd Hubble, now
23 -- and the victim, Frederick Antwan "Ricky" Penn, 19, of Oak Hill.

The witnesses are cracking the door on a staple of college life, at least
since the 1960s: the subculture of drug dealers.

o o o o o o

Bracing jurors for the testimony, David Jividen, Hubble's defense lawyer,
gave them a thumbnail review in his opening statement last Wednesday of his
client's life.

Hubble, now 23, was born and raised in Manassas, Va.

At Stonewall Jackson High School there, Hubble was the prototypical
All-America student-athlete.

"He had a 3.7 grade point average. He was captain of the football team and
he played on the baseball team," Jividen said.

In 1996, his senior year, Hubble was selected to join the "Raider 36" club.

The organization spotlights student achievers in the classroom and on the
playing field. It particularly celebrates "leadership qualities," said
Jividen.

Hubble also won a leadership award from the U.S. Army that year. His
achievements were significant, since Stonewall has a student body of about
2,000, Jividen noted.

Hubble worked at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's
restaurants. He also worked construction jobs in the summer.

He chose FSC because "he wanted to be a teacher and a coach" and because he
had heard about FSC's solid reputation for producing good teachers, the
lawyer said.

"But then something happened. . .something that parents have nightmares
about."

In 1999, Hubble became involved in drugs.

"He was making bad choices," something that parents worry about as their
teen-agers become young adults, Jividen said.

Yes, Hubble, whom prosecutors said was getting his cocaine from a source in
Virginia, was dealing in drugs, Jividen said.

But he's not a murderer, the Wheeling lawyer said.

The state has no eyewitnesses and its case is circumstantial, he argues.

o o o o o o

Penn was shot five times, sometime between May 16-18, 2000, according to
the indictment.

But his body wasn't found until the early evening of May 20, when police
entered his 109 View Ave. apartment after complaints from neighbors about a
foul odor.

His body was so decomposed that police weren't sure he had been shot until
a May 23 autopsy.

Demonstrating on his own body, Dr. Jack Frost, the state's chief deputy
medical examiner in Morgantown, alternately stood and sat Thursday
afternoon while testifying about the autopsy.

The fatal shot entered the right side of Penn's skull, several inches
behind and in line with the top of his right ear, Frost said.

The 5-10, 180-pound Penn was also shot in the upper front left chest, on
the back of the left forearm and the front of the left upper leg, midway
between the knee and his waist.

And Penn also suffered a grazing wound on the side of his right little finger.

Frost said he couldn't tell which shot was first.

He also couldn't form a scientific opinion about whether Penn may have
instinctively rolled into a fetal, protective ball as the bullets slammed
into his body, the veteran pathologist said.

But the grazing wounds on the left forearm and the right little finger
"could be consistent with a person putting their arms up" to block or ward
off more wounds, Frost estimated.

o o o o o o

Penn was preparing to transfer schools to be closer to home. He was going
to rent a new apartment for his girlfriend, Jillian Small, now 19, of
Bradley and the mother of his youngest son, Dietrich Penn, now 2.

And he was going to enroll at West Virginia University-Tech in Montgomery
after completing his freshman year in FSC's community college.

Penn was a former high school football player, too.

His mother, Melanie Watson, of Indianapolis, Ind., said he graduated in 1998.

"He wanted to be a sports agent or manager. He wanted to be Jerry Maguire,"
she said.

She and her mother would spend weekends cooking and freezing dinners for
Ricky to take back to his Fairmont apartment, she said.

He was devoted to his sons, Demetrius Nuzum, 4, and Dietrich, she said.

Nikia Moul, now 19, of Orlando, Fla., recalled the two of them watching
movie videos that spring.

His favorite was "Casino," she said.

She knew he was selling marijuana. She couldn't identify his handguns, but
she knew "he kept a pistol under his pillow."

He kept his drug cash in a fireproof lockbox, she said.

She was working at a mall in Morgantown when she saw him for the last time
on the Friday before Mother's Day (Mother's Day was May 14 that year).

"He went to pick up his tuxedo because he was going to the Oak Hill High
School prom" on Saturday (May 13). He was going to Jillian's senior prom.

Moul said she had met Penn at Oak Hill High.

Diane Chewning, now 21, of Fairmont, said she met Penn at the start of the
fall semester at FSC.

"It was August 1999. We met in math class" and almost immediately hit it
off, said Chewning, an elementary education major.

On that Mother's Day weekend, she said Penn was waiting for an important
delivery.

"I'd heard that there was more than $10,000 worth of cocaine and marijuana"
coming in for the last school weekend, a time of hard-partying before
students left campus for the summer.

Elaina Foster, 20, who now is a junior at Marshall University, said Penn
thought a Morgantown gang had broken into his apartment earlier that spring.

His place was trashed, including threats left behind by the vandals on the
walls: "R.I.P. . . .we will be back."

Kenneth Gibson, 22, of Boomer, said he and Penn were close like brothers.

He spent the week before that Mother's Day with Penn.

Hubble came over that Tuesday. "He said he was taking a trip to Virginia,
going to get some cocaine" and asked Penn if he wanted to buy some of the
drug, Gibson recalled.

He hadn't met Hubble before, but he noticed Hubble "seemed all paranoid. He
was fidgety . . . pacing back and forth, couldn't stand still."

No deal was struck that day, but on Thursday, Hubble returned to Penn's
apartment, Gibson said.

"Ricky got his safe out and counted out $1,000 for Mark to get him
cocaine," Gibson said.

But Penn, who had already told Hubble he wasn't particularly interested in
the deal, and Hubble couldn't reach an agreement.

Penn told Hubble he had to take Gibson back home that weekend and wouldn't
be in town anyway.

Asked on cross examination about Penn's drug dealing, Small said she knew
about it.

She had brought Dietrich up to Fairmont to spend spring break with Penn.
The couple had agreed not to talk about the drug dealing, she said.

"He never did it around me -- or the baby," she said.

o o o o o o

The trial resumes at 9 a.m. Monday. Fairmont city police detectives who
investigated the case have yet to testify and the state may not rest its
case until Tuesday.