Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Kimberly Eide struck Tara Rooksberry-Tyree with her SUV in the parking lot of the El Rodeo restaurant on Electric Road.

Tara Rooksberry-Tyree's mother (from left), older sister, Lauren Galvan, 30, and unidentified man listen in Roanoke County General District Court on Friday during Kimberly Eide's preliminary hearing.

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A series of witnesses agreed Friday that Tara Rooksberry-Tyree died at the end of a margarita-fueled shouting match, run down in a restaurant parking lot by a woman with whom she'd just had lunch.

Whether the horrible episode warranted a first-degree murder charge against Kimberly Eide, the 40-year-old Botetourt County woman who drove a Dodge Durango into Rooksberry-Tyree, was the subject of Friday's hearing in Roanoke County General District Court.

Eide's attorney argued that aggravated manslaughter would be a more appropriate charge. The prosecutor replied that only an instant of premeditation was needed to justify an accusation of first-degree murder.

Relatives of Rooksberry-Tyree wept and shouted, "Thank you, Jesus!" as Judge Vincent Lilley agreed to send the murder charge and a count of felony hit-and-run to a grand jury. Rooksberry-Tyree lived in Northeast Roanoke and was 28 when she died, leaving behind an elementary-school-age daughter.

The grand jury is scheduled to take up the case Oct. 1. If jurors decide there is sufficient evidence to justify the charges, then Eide will be indicted and the case sent to circuit court for trial.

At Roanoke County Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Leach's request, a slew of lesser charges were dropped Friday.

Multiple versions of the events that immediately preceded Rooksberry-Tyree's death were told, but all agreed on at least two key points: Eide, 40, had left the El Rodeo in the 3200 block of Electric Road about 3 p.m. May 4, quarreling with Rooksberry-Tyree; and moments later Eide drove an SUV across the parking lot and crushed Rooksberry-Tyree against a parked Jeep.

"She was pinned between the Jeep and the Durango for a few seconds," testified Haley Nicely, who'd heard the arguing and watched from the nearby Golds Gym parking lot. "Then ... her body just fell."

Seeing Rooksberry-Tyree's battered body "stunned me," testified Michael Richards, who had been repairing the curb of a traffic island near the restaurant. Like other witnesses, he heard raised voices, watched the argument, then saw the Durango back up and dart forward, engine roaring. "I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed," Richards said.

After the crash, Eide drove away, but police soon found her parked on a highway shoulder where Interstate 581 enters Interstate 81. Her speech was slurred and her walk was wobbly, Officer Jessica Vasquez of the Roanoke County Police Department testified.

Eide's son, Donovan Winland, testified that he went to El Rodeo with his mother and Rooksberry-Tyree about noon, and that the women drank margaritas while he downed shots of liquor to cope with their bickering. He said the arguing was about "just little things" but reached a flash point after all three had left the restaurant and climbed into the Durango.

Eide snatched cigarettes from Rooksberry-Tyree's purse, and Rooksberry-Tyree climbed out of the SUV. "I guess she just didn't want to deal with it. She got out and said she'd find another ride," Winland said.

Winland had been in the driver's seat but walked with Rooksberry-Tyree back toward El Rodeo. Eide slid behind the wheel.

One witness said she'd been out of the vehicle, screaming at Rooksberry-Tyree, and ran around to the still-open driver's door; others said she was still in the Durango and hopped from the front passenger seat across to the driver's position.

All agreed Eide backed up and raced forward into Rooksberry-Tyree. Winland said he was not struck and ended up between the Jeep and another parked car.

Eide sobbed at the defense table as her son testified.

Officer John Musser of the Roanoke County Police Department testified that the car beside Winland and the Jeep, a Honda, was hit so hard that it was moved a foot past the line at the edge of its parking space.

Eide's attorney, Mark Kidd of Roanoke, hammered at the premeditation question, asking witnesses if his client had been drinking, and whether the Durango basically traveled in a straight line back, then forward, after Eide took the wheel. While some witnesses described Eide and Rooksberry-Tyree slapping at one another's purses -- or even hitting each other -- as they left the restaurant, Kidd noted that Winland said there were no threats, no hitting.

Lilley said that guilt or innocence, or murder or manslaughter, have yet to be determined, but that there was more than enough evidence to let the case go forward.

After the hearing, Leach said the differences in some of the witnesses' stories were "something I'll have to address with the jury.

"But people perceive things differently," he said.

Lauren Galvan, Rooksberry-Tyree's sister, said that while her family trusts that justice will be done, their grief has not faded.

"I just feel like a piece of me is gone," she said.