Man Guilty Of Killing Good Samaritan

MATHEWS — A woman's account of her abduction and how she unwittingly led an innocent stranger into fatal gunfire helped convict Richard Lee Haywood of murder and other charges Wednesday.

Haywood, a 50-year-old county resident with an arrest record dating to the 1950s, was convicted in the first Circuit Court murder trial in the county in at least eight years.

Judge John E. DeHardit found Haywood guilty of the first degree murder of Franklin Rowe and five other felony charges: using a gun in committing a murder; the attempted murder, abduction and wounding of Margie Hudgins; and breaking into the home where he tried to hide from deputies searching from him.

Rowe, a 72-year-old retiree who lived in Moon, died in front of the Little Sue convenience store in Mathews Court House Nov. 16 after he attempted to come to Hudgins' aid and was shot twice.

Haywood, who was described in a probation report as coming from a family of "hard-working watermen," took the stand in his own defense.

He denied abducting Hudgins and denied he had intended to shoot Rowe or Hudgins.

His graying hair swept back in a pompadour, Haywood said he was holding a .22-caliber revolver in his hand when Rowe attempted to take it away from him. He said the gun went off as they struggled.

Joseph R. Caprio, Haywood's court-appointed attorney, argued, "There was no abduction, there was no first degree murder, there was no attempt to kill anyone. ... These are things which happened to come about because of the gun."

Haywood's account was contradicted by Hudgins and Connie Shelton, a registered nurse who drove up to the store as the shooting occurred, about 6 p.m.

Hudgins testified that Haywood had come up to her car as she pulled into another Little Sue store, in Port Haywood, about 5 p.m. She said she had known Haywood all her life, that he had grown up with her brothers and that he had had a relationship with her sister, Helen Pugh.

She had frequently given Haywood rides, Hudgins said, but on this night she had been in a hurry to get home and make dinner for her father.

"Usually he would say, `Can I catch a ride down the road?' but not that night," she said. "He said `Take me down the road' in a different tone of voice."

Once they were in the car heading south toward Bavon, where they both lived, Hudgins said Haywood pulled out a small gun and said to her, " `I have to use you for bait, I have to get to Helen, and I have to use you for bait. She done used me and done taken my money, and you're the only way I can get to her.'"

Hudgins, who grew more agitated as she recounted the events leading up to the shooting, then said Haywood forced her to go to his house in Bavon, where there was no phone.

While there he kept his gun trained on her and kept insisting she take him somewhere and call her sister on his behalf.

"He said, `If you don't drive right, if you don't talk right, if you act like you're in trouble, I'll kill you. If you do like I say, I won't hurt you,'" Hudgins said. "I begged him to let me go."

After Haywood drank a cup of coffee, the two of them drove back up Route 14 to find a phone.

They passed by the Little Sue in Port Haywood because there were two men in front of the phone and continued on to the Little Sue at Hyco Corner.

Hudgins got out of the car, she said, and "instead of going to the phone - I couldn't run, I didn't have the strength to run - I started to walk to the store.

"I saw a man come out of the store, and I said, `Please, someone help me, he's got a gun.'"

The man coming out of the store was Rowe, who had just stopped in to buy some newspapers. Hudgins said Rowe stepped between her and Haywood, and Haywood then fired his gun.

"I thought I was dead when he shot Mr. Rowe in front of me. He shot the man, then he reached around and shot me and reached around and shot the man again," Hudgins said.

"Not only was I shot, I had to undergo surgery that night," she said, starting to cry. "The bullet is still in my back, and I have a scar on my breast."

After a short recess requested by Commonwealth's Attorney F. Paul Blanock so Hudgins could regain her composure, she was cross-examined by Caprio.

Caprio's questions drew her anger.

At one point she stood up and exposed a scar on her stomach, saying, "I'm not trying to pull the wool. I was shot."

Hudgins insisted there was no struggle between Haywood and Rowe.

Haywood was picked up about 24 hours after the shooting after police traced phone calls he made to Pugh and found him hiding in the home of David Patterson, a neighbor in Bavon.

Sheriff's deputies and State Police officers surrounded the house.

After a five-hour standoff, 25 tear-gas cannisters were fired into the dwelling and Haywood emerged.

The gun used in the shooting, a black, .22-caliber pistol with white hand grips, was found fully loaded on a bed in the house.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Blanock said that bullet holes through two newspapers and a magazine that Rowe was holding when he was shot indicated he could not have been struggling with Haywood.

Caprio argued there was no evidence Haywood "shot anyone in cold blood" and that at best he should be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter or at worst, second degree murder.

DeHardit dismissed Caprio's claims.

Haywood, to be sentenced July 17, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years to life for first degree murder and lesser amounts on the other five counts.

The last conviction listed in the report stems from charges brought in February 1987 for pointing a firearm at a deputy and firing into a building, for which he received a 30-day jail term and a $150 fine.