Modified Wed, Oct 07, 2009 09:32 PM
Jury in Reaves case begins deliberations
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close xRALEIGH -- The jury deciding the fate of Robert Lee Adams Reaves, the man accused of fatally stabbing an N.C. Central University student last year, will continue reviewing the case today.
The seven men and five women who will decide whether the former pastor is guilty of murdering Latrese Curtis, 21, began their deliberations mid-afternoon Wednesday. Curtis' bloodied body was found Jan. 30, 2008, on Interstate 540.
Prosecutors say Reaves killed Curtis in a jealous rage. Curtis was the paramour of Steven Randolph, a housemate of Reaves.
Prosecutors contended that Reaves thought Curtis was an obstacle to a sexual relationship he hoped to spark with Randolph. Prosecutors portrayed Reaves as a man who secretly stalked Randolph and his close friends, placing threatening and ominous phone calls to them and going so far as to slash the tires on their cars.
Defense lawyers, in closing arguments Wednesday, tried to convince the jury that Wake County investigators nabbed the wrong man, that Randolph, not Reaves, had a motive for the killing. They suggested that Randolph, an aspiring professional basketball player, was worried about a sexual liaison he had with Curtis hours before she was found dead.
Randolph testified last week that a condom had come off during the encounter, causing him and Curtis to worry about the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy.
George Kelly, one of the attorneys representing Reaves, tried to lay out a case against Randolph, using a series of cell phone calls and text messages between him and Curtis shortly after their liaison.
"The motive in this case was not a rebuffed sexual advance. There's not an emotional bind whatsoever," Kelly said in his closing arguments. "You have a player, a condom and an adulterous affair. He didn't want to lose his future."
Assistant District Attorney Howard Cummings countered those claims in his closing arguments, saying Randolph's story about where he was and what he had done in the hours before and after the homicide checked out with the evidence.
The only claims that investigators were unable to corroborate were those made by Reaves.
Reaves told investigators shortly after the homicide that he had been at church Jan. 29, 2008. But his sister did not see him there, and no other congregation members had come forward.
The state is not seeking the death penalty. If convicted, Reaves faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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