Arguments begin in Bedford County murder trial [The News and Advance, Lynchburg, Va.]

Mar. 24--BEDFORD -- Lawyers making opening statements in the murder trial of a former local school administrator accused of staging his estranged wife's death to appear to be a suicide described nearly opposite portraits of the same man Tuesday as the Wesley Earnest trial began in Bedford Circuit Court.

Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Wes Nance described 39-year-old Wesley Earnest as a man who so saw Jocelyn Earnest as an obstacle to his fantasy of being a real estate mogul that he killed her in an elaborate but botched scheme. Nance told jurors that Jocelyn, 38 at the time of her death in December 2007, was making important strides as she saw the light at the end of the tunnel in the messy and protracted divorce and was moving on with her life.

"It's an age-old story of greed and lust and sex and money," Nance told the jury as he stood in front of a crime scene photo of Jocelyn Earnest's body. "Wesley Earnest saw his estranged wife as an obstacle to those things."

He also described how Wesley Earnest borrowed a truck from a man in Chesapeake two days before his wife's death. He claimed he needed it to move his belongings to a campground, but returned the truck the day her body was found. When he returned the truck, Nance said, he apologized that he had cleaned the floor mats too roughly and had discolored them. Earnest didn't actually rent space at the campground until six days later, the prosecutor said.

He borrowed the same truck again after Christmas and returned it with four new tires he had bought with cash using a fake name and address, Nance said.

To listen to Earnest's attorney, Joseph Sanzone, one would think the opposite was true -- that he had moved on with a job as an assistant principal in Chesapeake and was coming back to the area on weekends to visit his girlfriend in Campbell County, and that he hadn't spoken to Jocelyn for 10 months.

Jocelyn Earnest, Sanzone said, was a person whose life was full of turmoil. She had gotten entangled in a friend's affairs when co-worker Maysa Munsey was accused by law enforcement of harassing another woman at work who was dating Munsey's husband.

Earnest spent most of her last day alive at the Amherst County Sheriff's Office with Munsey, who had been accused of stealing the woman's Social Security number and using it to have her electricity shut off.

Marcy Shepherd, another friend and co-worker of both Jocelyn Earnest and Munsey and the person who discovered Earnest's body, claimed to be having a lesbian relationship with Jocelyn Earnest that Earnest's family knew nothing about.

"On Dec. 19, there was a huge storm coming and it had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with Jocelyn Earnest and what was going on in her life," Sanzone said.

Jocelyn Earnest's mother and sister testified Tuesday that the Earnests met while attending West Virginia University. They moved to Bedford County in the early 1990s, built a house in Forest and were married in 1995. According to statements in court, however, the marriage became troubled in 2004 after Wesley Earnest took out $900,000 in loans to build a home at Smith Mountain Lake and began an affair. The couple filed for divorce in 2006.

Wesley Earnest, who had taught at Jefferson Forest High School, and worked at Heritage High School in Lynchburg as an administrator, moved to Chesapeake in 2005 where he was working as an assistant principal. Jocelyn Earnest was a project manager at Genworth.

Her body was found on Dec. 20, 2007 at her home at 1482 Pine Bluff Drive, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. A stainless steel .357 Magnum revolver was found at her side. Between her body in a front room of her home and the front door was a suicide note prosecutors and Bedford County Sheriff's Office investigators believe was forged.

A partial fingerprint belonging to Wesley Earnest was found on the note. He is charged with first-degree murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.

Sanzone agreed there was something "fishy" about the suicide note, but disagreed about the significance of Wesley's fingerprints on it since it was possible the paper could have been left around in the Pine Bluff home from a time when the couple lived together.

Nance asked jurors to consider why Jocelyn would have typed out the note, printed on an inkjet printer, when investigators found volumes of handwritten journals she had been keeping at the advice of a counselor she had been seeing for help during the divorce.

The pending deadline for settling the divorce in March 2008 may have pushed Wesley Earnest over the edge, Nance contended.

He said witnesses will testify Wesley Earnest told co-workers and others in Chesapeake that he was not married and that he conveyed the image he had made millions in the real estate market. The truth was, Nance said, Earnest was in debt more than a million dollars and feared not being able to get his money out of the lake home before it was forced to be sold in the divorce for less than market value with the proceeds divided.

Attorneys also set the stage for a dispute over the ownership of the gun used in her death, a Smith & Wesson 640. Prosecutors claim the gun was Wesley Earnest's since he purchased it and the box for the gun was found at his girlfriend's home after Jocelyn Earnest's death. Sanzone argued it was something Wesley had left behind and that it belonged to his wife.

Sanzone sowed other seeds of doubt during his opening statement, asking how Wesley Earnest could have made what he said was a four-hour drive from Chesapeake after completing after-school bus duty in time to sneak into his wife's home in order to shoot her about 7:30 p.m. Dec. 19, 2007, when prosecutors believe she was killed, then was back at work early the next day.

He also asked questions about Shepherd, Jocelyn Earnest's co-worker who claimed in an earlier hearing to be having a romantic relationship with her, and who found the body the next morning.

Sanzone said the Shepherd testified earlier she was supposed to have met with Jocelyn Earnest on the 19th and that they had been exchanging text messages until about 7:30 p.m. He said Shepherd claimed she became concerned when Earnest stopped responding and drove to her home about 8:30 p.m. that night to find Jocelyn Earnest's car in the driveway, but the house dark and no answer at the door. He asked why Shepherd waited until late the next morning to go back to the home and why she had to rely on Munsey, their mutual friend and co-worker, to tell her how to get into the home if they were carrying on a romantic relationship.

There is evidence Jocelyn Earnest's body was moved, Sanzone said, but no one except Shepherd knows what happened in the home that morning. He said messages and calls between Jocelyn Earnest, Munsey and Shepherd will explain what really happened.

He added that there is unexplained evidence in the home, including an unidentified drop of blood in a bathroom sink, several unidentified hairs found in the bathroom and opened and unopened condom wrappers.

The first day moved more quickly than planned with jury selection, which was expected to last all day, finishing by a little after 1 p.m. with the selection of seven men and seven women, including two alternates.

The trial has also gained national attention from CBS' 48 Hours Mystery and NBC's Dateline programs.

Wesley Earnest has been free on bond since June 2008. His trial is expected to resume at 9 a.m.

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