Teen admits killing father

CHESAPEAKE, Va. — A teenager pleaded guilty yesterday to fatally shooting his father, but planned to appeal a ruling that prevented him from using accusations of sexual abuse as a defense.

A judge accepted Shane Cubbage’s conditional guilty plea and convicted him of first-degree murder. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors will drop a charge of using a firearm in a felony.

The agreement preserves the teen’s right to appeal a ruling earlier this year that he could not introduce evidence of abuse, because the facts in the case did not justify a claim of self-defense.

Chief Circuit Judge V. Thomas Forehand also barred Cubbage, 18, from using expert testimony about his state of mind, because state law does not allow that unless he intends to enter an insanity plea.

Cubbage will remain in jail until his sentencing on Jan. 18. Prosecutors plan to seek life in prison.

Defense attorney John W. Brown told the judge that he planned to present the claims of sexual abuse at the sentencing hearing, scheduled for three days.

“All the stuff they would not let us present, we will put on at the sentencing,” Mr. Brown said outside court.

If Cubbage wins his appeal, the conviction will be overturned and the case returned for trial, Mr. Brown said.

Cubbage contends that he was sexually abused by his father from September 2001 until May 4, 2003, the day before his father was shot. Killing his father was the only way for Cubbage to avoid harm, Mr. Brown said.

Cubbage told police that he was upset with his father because he wanted his son to do more work around the house and was a strict disciplinarian, prosecutor Randy Smith told the judge. The prosecutor also said Cubbage had friends over for parties twice while his father’s body was wrapped in a blanket in the house.

The slaying was discovered after hikers on the Appalachian Trail in southwestern Virginia found a confession note in a backpack on May 8, 2003. The note had been left in a shelter and was signed with the name Shane Cubbage, according to authorities.

The note’s author described how he had killed his father in Chesapeake and escaped to the mountains near Roanoke, according to court records.

The day after the note was found, detectives went to the family’s house and found the body of Forrest Cubbage, 43. The teenager told police that he shot his father in the back of the head while Mr. Cubbage was hanging wallpaper, the prosecutor said.

The victim’s wife, Eileen, a Navy chief petty officer, was at sea when the killing occurred. She attended the plea hearing but made no comment.

Shane Cubbage, then 16, was an Eagle Scout and a junior at Hickory High School, where he had a 3.6 grade-point average and no criminal history.