Trio indicted on charges of abuse and neglect

BY CLAIRE GALOFARO
and DANIEL GILBERT

BRISTOL, Va. – The trio accused of tying up a 6-year-old girl and taunting her with toy snakes and spiders, a sort of punishment for stealing food from the refrigerator, was indicted Tuesday by the Bristol Virginia Grand Jury along with 80 others on more than 100 charges.

The girl’s grandmother and primary guardian, Elsie Reyes, 46, and her aunt, Virginia Ramos, 20, were indicted on a charge of abuse and neglect.

The child’s uncle, Robert Leiva, 23, was indicted on one count of accessory before the fact of abuse and neglect.

Police said the girl was tied up for days at a time throughout July, until a visitor in the home snapped an anonymous cell phone photo and sent it to the Department of Social Services. The three were arrested in early August.

During a preliminary hearing in September, Leiva’s attorney, Josh Cumbow, requested that his client have a mental evaluation to determine both competency to stand trail and sanity at the time of the offense, citing a history of suicide attempts, hearing voices and paranoia.

The mental evaluation was granted and completed; the results now sealed in an envelope from the Southwest Virginia Mental Health Institution.

Leiva will stand trail with his mother and sister on Jan. 24 at 9 a.m. in Bristol Virginia Circuit Court. 

Police said in September that they suspected Leiva’s charge would be enhanced to match his relatives’ because the investigation led them to believe he was more than just a complacent bystander. The charge against him, however, has stayed the same: accessory to child abuse or neglect for knowing about it and doing nothing to stop it.

Among the other indictments Tuesday were:
n Two men who police say kicked open the door of an Old Abingdon Highway home in August and tried to sic their pet pit bull on the resident.
Christopher Neil Heflin, 29, was indicted on one count of breaking and entering and one count of attempted malicious wounding.
His girlfriend’s brother-in-law, Roy Edward Vance Jr., 44, was indicted on breaking and entering.
* The grand jury indicted two men charged with assaulting a police officer, and a third man charged with stealing a police car and eluding law enforcement.
John Gramling, 50, is charged with assault and battery of a law enforcement officer after a May 16 altercation with Bristol police officer Gary Wilcox. Gramling was shot several times; the officer was unharmed.
Jason Troy Pritchard, of Bristol, Va., was indicted for assaulting Sgt. Steven Crawford, and also faces charges of resisting arrest and public intoxication.
Kenneth Ray Clark, 43, of Bristol, Tenn., was indicted on charges of grand larceny and felony eluding, after a Sept. 15 pursuit in which he managed to commandeer the unlocked patrol car of a school resource officer who was pursuing him on foot.
* Wesley Allen Norton, 26, of Bristol, Va., was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The charge grew out of an Aug. 8 incident in which police found Norton lying on the ground near Mary Street. The officers later charged that Norton had entered a Rice Terrace dwelling with a gun to confront a resident, and had been beaten after firing a shot.
* Wesley G. Williams, 21, of Bristol, who was indicted on one count each of breaking and entering and grand larceny, stemming from an Aug. 9 incident in which he is accused of stealing a .38 Smith & Wesson handgun from the glove compartment of a Virginia Lottery investigator.
* Mark Anthony Napier, who was indicted on a felony count of indecent exposure, stemming from a June 29 incident in which police said he publicly displayed his private parts, a felony only as the third or subsequent offense. 

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