Amherst County murder trial under way

By Chris Dumond

Published: October 1, 2008

AMHERST — On May 4, Lisa Paula Vosburgh took the kind of Sunday drive that mothers have nightmares about.

Her 19-year-old son, Justin Baumgardner, hadn’t come home the night before. So Vosburgh set out from her home in Naola and spent the morning driving county roads, half expecting to find her son’s one-in-a-million lowered Chevy show truck parked at a friend’s house.

Instead, she testified Wednesday, she came across a clot of Amherst County deputies blocking Virginia 130 on her way home.

Shortly after stopping and telling the deputies about her missing son, Sheriff Jimmy Ayers came to her vehicle. He told her that the truck she had described was sitting in a driveway ahead, a few hundred feet off the road.

“He said, ‘I want to tell you there’s somebody in it and there are gunshots,’” Vosburgh said.

The mother’s testimony started what is expected to be a three-day jury trial in Amherst County.

Timothy Wright Jr., who turned 22 on Wednesday, is charged with first-degree murder, shooting at an occupied vehicle, shooting from a vehicle and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

During opening statements, Rockingham County Commonwealth’s Attorney Marcia Garst told the jury of eight women and five men that Wright shot Baumgardner on May 3 in a fit of jealousy over a 17-year-old girl both men dated.

“That man left Justin Baumgardner to drown in his own blood,” she said as she pointed to Wright.

Garst was appointed as a special prosecutor because 25-year-old Justin Davis, the son of an Amherst County deputy, is accused of driving Wright’s truck alongside Baumgardner’s on Virginia 130 — also known as Elon Road — as Wright shot him with Davis’ pistol.

Greg Smith, Wright’s lawyer, countered in opening statements that Davis framed Wright in the slaying. Smith lashed out at sheriff’s deputies, claiming they were covering up for one of their own by buying into Davis’ story that Wright had kidnapped him and forced him to run down Baumgardner in his truck that night.

Cary McConnell testified he found Baumgardner’s truck in his driveway in the 3400 block of Elon Road early on May 4. McConnell’s driveway is exactly five miles from the intersection of Virginia 130 and Monacan Park Road, where the confrontation between Wright and Baumgardner started the evening before.

A county investigator testified that it appeared there were five bullet holes in the truck, with one of those shots striking Baumgardner under the left armpit. Four spent casings were recovered from the roadway.

The object of Wright’s jealousy, now 18-year-old Nicole Turpin, testified Wednesday that she dated Baumgardner in 2007 after they met in high school. They broke up after he found out that she had gotten pregnant, miscarried and had not told him, Turpin said.

She met Wright in April.

“We talked every day,” she said, adding that he would pick her up from school and they would hang out at a local fast-food restaurant.

After finding out he was married, though, she refused to have sex with him, she testified.

When Wright found out about her past relationship with Baumgardner, “he was mad,” she said. “He said if Justin didn’t leave me alone, he was going to (expletive) kill him.”

In the evening of May 3, Baumgardner sent Turpin a text message telling her he wanted to make peace with his friends, according to testimony. He invited her to meet him at Monacan Park off Virginia 130 to talk.

Before leaving, the girl testified, she let Wright know she was meeting her ex-boyfriend at the park.

Baumgardner and Turpin had been together at the park for about half an hour before Wright’s truck sped in and out of the park, she testified. He stopped briefly and told her she needed to go home, she said.

When he came back shortly afterward, Wright pulled his truck behind Baumgardner’s, got outand shoved the man, the girl testified.

Wright threatened to kill him again, she said, if Baumgardner didn’t leave her alone.

She testified she broke up the fight and that Baumgardner left, promising to call her when he got home.

When he didn’t call her, she said she confronted Wright, who denied harming the man. The day after Baumgardner’s body was found, Wright gave her a poem saying he wished he could have taken the dead man’s place, she testified.

She stayed with Wright, she said, even to the point of being by his side when he was arrested for Baumgardner’s slaying.

Testimony concluded at 5 p.m. Wednesday. The trial is expected to last through Friday and resume by 9:30 a.m. today with Turpin’s cross-examination.