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John Ames (right), with his wife, Jeanne, and attorneys Craig S. Cooley (left) and J. Benjamin Dick by his side, answers questions outside the courthouse after a jury found him not guilty of murder. Ames testified that he shot Perry Brooks in self-defense.
John Ames kisses his wife, Jeanne, outside the courthouse yesterday after a jury cleared him in the death of Perry Brooks. |
Draping his arm around his son's shoulders and holding his wife's hand, John F. Ames walked out of Caroline County Circuit Court yesterday a free man.
A six-man, six-woman jury deliberated for five hours yesterday before finding Ames not guilty of murder in the shooting death of 74-year-old Perry Brooks in April 2004.
"It was a reasonable verdict," defense attorney Craig S. Cooley said outside the courtroom. "Mr. Ames will go with his family and live the rest of his life in peace."
Stoic for most of the week, Ames smiled broadly and embraced his family shortly after the verdict was read about 2 p.m. He spoke briefly with a swarm of reporters outside, thanking his attorneys and family for their support.
"I'm relieved," said his wife of 36 years, Jeanne Ames.
Others weren't so pleased--including Annette McDonald, a friend of the Brooks family.
"He won't get his judgment here," McDonald said. "But he'll face it one day. Because he's got to face his maker."
Evelyn Brooks, the widow of Perry Brooks, shared a few words before leaving the courthouse.
"I really don't know how I feel," she said. "I've been through so much. Time will take care of a lot of things."
Evelyn Brooks has filed a $10 million wrongful-death suit against Ames. It's scheduled for trial Dec. 5 in the same Caroline courtroom where the criminal case played out this week.
Ames--a 60-year-old bankruptcy lawyer, accountant and cattle farmer--admitted to shooting his longtime nemesis on his Holly Hill Farm off State Route 207 near Bowling Green.
But Ames said it was an act of self-defense, testifying that his neighbor tried to attack him with a hickory stick while trespassing on Holly Hill. Ames said he had disputed with Brooks for 15 years and feared his neighbor.
Brooks came to Holly Hill to retrieve a bull that had strayed off his property. Michael Beazley, who was with Brooks that day, said the vegetable farmer never swung the stick before Ames fired. He said Brooks was shot several times again while he lay helpless on the ground.
Caroline Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Latney argued that Ames planned to kill Brooks, waiting for his neighbor to come onto the property before confronting and shooting him.
But one jury member, who asked to remain anonymous, said reasonable doubt surrounded the prosecution's case.
"The evidence just showed that it was self-defense," she said outside court, adding, "It was a very difficult decision."
Juror Stephanie Arthur said the jury was split six and six between voluntary manslaughter and a not-guilty verdict when deliberations began.
Arthur came down at first on the side of manslaughter, believing it was heat-of-passion violence and that Ames could have stopped after one shot. But she said jurors persuaded her and others that there was too much doubt for a criminal conviction.
Arthur said law enforcement officers should have done more to stop the feud. She said the trial should have been moved from Caroline and that she knows the verdict will be unpopular.
Both jurors interviewed said a dramatic action during Cooley's closing argument helped convince them it was self-defense.
Cooley banged the defense table with the 3-foot hickory stick that Brooks held that day, producing a resounding crack. He asked jurors to picture that hitting Ames' skull.
"They called it a stick," said the juror who requested anonymity. "That thing was a solid piece of wood."
Many of the details of the Brooks-Ames feud came out during the weeklong trial.
Ames bought the 670-acre farm in 1985, starting a Black Angus breeding business and carefully guarding the animals' pedigrees. Problems with Brooks started in 1989, when the two disputed about a barbed-wire fence Ames put up around his property.
Brooks believed part of the fence was on his property. Ames charged Brooks $45,000 for his share of the fence--an amount that Brooks never paid and that has been gathering interest over the past decade.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the land belonged to Ames and that state law allowed him to bill Brooks. That law has since been changed.
Over the years, Brooks admitted to cutting the fence and to firing a shotgun to scare Ames. Cooley described the bull that got onto Ames' land as a disease-ridden "mutt" that could impregnate his top-notch cows.
The bull got loose a few days before the shooting. Ames told Brooks' son-in-law that he could get it the morning of April 19, 2004. Brooks was under court order to stay off Holly Hill Farm.
Ames testified that he left the farm about 9:30 a.m. that day to get his mail in Bowling Green. He returned home to open it and set out for his Richmond office. He said he saw an unfamiliar truck down by his barn as he left.
Ames said he didn't think Brooks would be there. He saw Beazley and returned to his car to call police. He testified that when he turned around, Brooks was standing within three feet with the stick drawn back.
Ames said he fired his 9 mm pistol to protect himself as Brooks swung. He testified that Brooks charged and lunged at him. Brooks was shot four times, including bullets to the face and chest.
Ames said it was a tragic event that he wishes had never happened. Latney summed up the long feud in his closing argument.
"It ended with one man left standing," the prosecutor said. "And that man left standing is John Ames."
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