By Louis Hansen
The Virginian-Pilot
chesapeake
Three men emerged from a crashed white van during rush hour on June 1. A shootout followed and left one of the three dead on the highway, a police officer wounded, and Interstate 64 closed for hours.
Prosecutors say the three men worked as a cadre, intent on robbing or holding a fourth man, Tione Vincent, for catalog printing ransom.
Defense attorneys say little evidence links the two survivors, Willie Simmons and Dedrion Short, to the crimes.
On Friday, jurors heard final arguments and began deciding the fate of Simmons and Short, who are charged with seven felonies, including kidnapping and the first-degree murder of Vincent. Christopher "C.C." White died in the shootout.
Jurors returned to the courtroom at about 5 p.m. and told Circuit Court Judge John W. Brown they needed more time to make their decisions. Deliberations are scheduled to resume Monday.
The closing arguments put a cap on a seven-day trial that has featured testimony from dozens of police officers, forensic experts, and a defendant, Short, who fac es life in prison.
In his closing , prosecutor D.J. Hansen told the jury the three men plotted to kidnap Vincent or his brother for a ransom. They found Vincent in Berkley, grabbed him and took off. That set the bloody drama in motion, he said.
"Three men, three loaded guns," Hansen said. "They were armed. They were ready ... They used those guns to facilitate the murder."
Vincent's body was found in the back of a van. White killed himself after a shootout with police, according to testimony.
Only when Chesapeake police started to tail them along George Washington Highway did their plot unravel, Hansen said. White probably fired the shots that killed Vincent, he said, but the other men were just as responsible under the law.
It is likely that during the shootout, wounded police Officer Sean Fleming struck White in the leg and crippled him. Even still, Hansen said, "White had every intention of allowing his buddies to get away."
Short and Simmons were arrested separately.
replica bag wholesaleShort's lawyer, Kurt Gilchrist, told the jury that his client had given them the only full account of what happened June 1.
"There is only one voice that knows what happened in that van," he said. "That's the voice of Dedrion Short."
Gilchrist told the jury that the only scientific evidence linking Short to the crime - a DNA sample found on a .380-caliber handgun - supported Short's testimony.
Short testified that he Omega Replica Watches and Vincent were friends. Short said he hated White. When White threatened Vincent in the back of the van, Short said, he grabbed the .380-caliber handgun from the floorboard and tried to stop the murder.
"The scientific evidence backs him up because he's telling you the truth," Gilchrist told the jury.
Simmons' lawyer, A. Robinson Winn, argued that his client never participated in the kidnapping and, he added, "there's no concrete evidence that Mr. Simmons assisted in the murder."
Winn also argued that scientific evidence supported Sim
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