By SUE LINDSEY
The Associated Press
ABINGDON, Va.— Jurors Thursday began hearing the capital murder case against an escaped inmate accused of killing two people with the gun of a sheriff’s deputy he had knocked out in a hospital.
Prosecutors say William Morva shot an unarmed hospital security guard in the face from two feet away, and a day later killed a sheriff’s deputy who was searching for him on a walking trail near the Virginia Tech campus. The men were killed in August 2006, several months before the unrelated mass shooting at the school that left 33 people dead.
“This is a case about a prisoner who would stop at nothing in the course of an escape,” prosecutor Brad Finch said.
Defense attorney Thomas Blaylock asked jurors to keep an open mind until all evidence had been presented. He said Morva suffered from physical and mental difficulties and had felt abandoned by his lawyer and family as he was held in jail without bond on attempted robbery charges.
“This is not a case of who. This is not a case of how. This is a case of why,” Blaylock said.
Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if Morva, 26, is convicted of capital murder.
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputy Russell Quesenberry testified that he took Morva to Montgomery County Regional Hospital in Blacksburg for treatment of leg and arm injuries, and was overpowered after he allowed the prisoner to use a restroom as they were leaving to return to the jail.
Morva is accused of killing security guard Derrick McFarland, 32, as he escaped.
Jennifer Preston, who was a patient at the hospital that night, pointed to Morva as the man she saw shoot McFarland. She testified that the security guard didn’t try to take the gun that Morva trained on him.
“He almost looked like he was trying to appease him,” she said.
Quesenberry said he didn’t remember anything after he opened the restroom door, but woke up on a hospital gurney. He said he suffered a broken nose that required surgery and had a broken bone in his face, bumps on the back of his head and an injured hand.
Sheriff’s Cpl. Eric Sutphin was in the hospital that night and came to comfort Quesenberry.
“I remember a hand coming down on my chest,” Quesenberry said. “He told me everything would be OK.”
The next day Sutphin was killed as he and hundreds of other officers searched for Morva.
The trial was moved to Washington County after a jury could not be seated in Montgomery County because many of the prospective jurors had relationships with principals in the case.
Blaylock said Morva was known as a character in downtown Blacksburg, where he was called “Barefoot Will” or “Crazy Will” because he never wore shoes no matter what the weather. His family had moved to Blacksburg from the Richmond area when Morva was in high school, and Blaylock said Morva stayed behind when the family moved back a few years later.
Morva spent months in jail after his arrest in May 2005 without contact from his court-appointed attorney, Blaylock said.
“He began to think in his mind he was left there to rot,” he said, and Morva’s frustration grew when his brother was arrested and released on bond in a matter of days.
(This version corrects McFarland’s age, 32, not 26.)