Questions arise over teens' role in Norfolk mob beating

NORFOLK

Jurors must decide whether two girls standing trial for murder in the mob beating death of a man in East Ocean View were members of a gang who helped stomp and rob him, or innocents who passed by a crime as they prepared to take a church trip.

The jurors' decision may hinge on what they think of the prosecution's chief witness, another teenage girl who has pleaded guilty to murder in the case.

The girls who went on trial Tuesday in Circuit Court, Nichelle Carter and Ieshia Rountree, are now 17 years old but were 15 at the time they were arrested. They face first-degree murder, lynching, robbery, malicious wounding and weapons charges in the July 27, 2007, killing of James S. Robertson Jr., 19. He and two others were attacked, stripped and robbed by a mob on 16th Bay Street near Pleasant Avenue. Robertson's cousin, Timothy Minter, and their friend, Desmond Ashe, escaped.

In his opening statement, prosecutor James Entas described a brutal attack. Some girls the men had met weeks before lured them to a dark parking lot, he said. At a signal from a male member of the Bounty Hunter Bloods, more than a dozen people swarmed over the three men, punching, stomping and pistol-whipping them.

The mob stole clothing and money and tore through Robertson's car. The gang left Robertson lying on the ground half-naked and drenched in blood. The first officer there thought Robertson had been shot in the head.

Entas told jurors they did not need to decide whether Carter or Rountree struck the fatal blows. The law says all who participated are culpable, Entas said.

"Your job is to decide: Did they participate?" Entas said. "Are they inside the circle, or outside the circle?"

B. Thomas Reed, Carter's lawyer, said the person who implicates Carter and Rountree was herself the instigator of the event. Skyler Hayward has testified against her co-defendants at previous hearings and has pleaded guilty to murder and other charges but has not yet been sentenced. Reed said Hayward lured Robertson, Minter and Ashe to the parking lot to improve her standing in the gang. She told her friends that the three men had jewelry, money, and steady paychecks, Reed said - ideal robbery victims.

Reed said Hayward also concocted a story that the men had assaulted the girlfriend of a gang member to ratchet up the violence.

Reed said Hayward will testify that Carter and Rountree participated in the beating, but did not name any of her friends.

"Skyler Hayward has not provided police with a single name, nor a single fact, to incriminate her 'homeys.' She has minimized her involvement," Reed said.

Reed said that his client and Rountree had met up that night because they planned to take a church bus on a trip to a water park the following day. Carter and Rountree wore flip-flops and capri pants for the trip, he said. As they walked to Rountree's house, they passed Hayward, and Carter asked for a cigarette. Hayward did not mention the plan to rob the men, Reed said.

When the signal sounded and the mob ran out, Reed said, Carter and Rountree "ran away. They were scared to death."

The victim's father, James Robertson Sr., was the first witness to testify. It took the elder Robertson 11 hours to drive to Norfolk from his home in Georgia after he got the call; his son had died by the time he arrived. He remained composed as Entas showed him pictures, first of Robertson alive, and then images from his autopsy.

"That's my son," Robertson said.

The trial continues today.

Michelle Washington, (757) 446-2287, michelle.washington@pilotonline.com