Accidental shooting in Portsmouth yields manslaughter conviction

By JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE
The Virginian-Pilot

PORTSMOUTH - Early Nov. 17, four friends headed to a car after a good time at a club. One ended up dead. On Wednesday, another was convicted in Circuit Court of accidentally killing him.

Kevin Howell climbed in the back of a car, directly behind the passenger seat where Desmond J. Cherry sat. Howell heard shots nearby and figured trouble was coming.

He grabbed a gun he'd bought for "protection," as he later told a detective, and tried to chamber a round.

Instead, the gun fired. The bullet tore through the seat. It struck Cherry between his spine and shoulder blade, went through his lung and heart, and rested near his collarbone.

Howell and two other men in the car drove to Maryview Medical Center to get help for Cherry. On the way, one man told police, they got their stories straight that someone else had done the shooting that night.

Once Cherry was on a stretcher, they left.

Howell dumped the gun in Truxtun and returned to the hospital, where a doctor told him his friend was dead. He started walking off. Police caught up.

Robert Joyner, a homicide detective, first considered Howell a witness but testified that the story and Howell's demeanor cast doubts.

Howell was taken into custody and questioned. Eventually, he was read his rights and gave a statement in which he confessed to the shooting.

"Close friend," Howell told Joyner, speaking of Cherry.

So Wednesday was a tough day in Circuit Court.

"My guy is terribly broken up over it," said Howell's lawyer, Dianne G. Ringer . "It's a terrible accident."

The judge, the prosecutor and two families who have suffered didn't say otherwise.

"All I can say is they've been best friends since the third grade," said Michelle Howell , the defendant's mother.

They played ball in the street together, she said. They slept over at each other's houses.

"Stayed over," Carl Eady , Cherry's stepfather, said later. "Ate at my house and all."

The thing that got to him was that Kevin Howell denied it for hours. "He did it," Eady said. "It can't be redone."

To the prosecution, it was about negligence that led to a man's death. Judge Everett Bagnell agreed in his decision, finding Howell guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Howell, 23, could be sentenced in May .

"It's unfortunate," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Ali T. Sprinkle said.

Police recovered about $1,200 from the victim at Maryview, records show.

Cherry's mother asked them to put the money toward burying her son.