Young victims, no names

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Daily Press 11/19/2017

Young victims, no names New Virginia law blocks police from identifying minors who die in crimes By Peter Dujardin

When a 15-year-old boy was found shot to death in a church parking lot in southeast Newport News on Nov. 3, police said a new state law precluded them from releasing the teenager's name. "Due to changes in State Code, law enforcement is no longer able to release the identity of juveniles who die as the result of a violent crime, " Newport News police spokesman Lou Thurston told the media in announcing the slaying. That marked a major shift and was a surprise to many people. For decades, police and sheriff's offices in Virginia have routinely provided the names of virtually all homicide victims - from 2-month-old babies shaken to death to 15-year-old boys and 23-year-old men found shot on the street, to 50-year-old women killed by their husbands. But a new statute took effect in July saying that law enforcement can't release the names of minors who die in crimes unless the police get written permission from their next of kin. Del. Jackson H. Miller, R-Manassas, sponsored the legislation. It started out as a bill to block police from naming, without the next of kin's consent, juveniles who die of "sexual assault, sexual abuse or family abuse." But in the legislative process, the bill was expanded to say police can't release the identities of youths who die from "any crime" at all. Police can identify the "site of the crime, " and there's an exception allowing them to put out the juvenile's identity if doing so is "necessary for law-enforcement purposes." The bill sailed through the General Assembly with hardly any discussion. The Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, the Virginia Press Association and the Virginia Coalition for Open Government all said last week they were not following the bill as it went through the process in February. It passed the House of Delegates 98-1 and the Senate 30-10. "No one really spoke much on either side, " said David Cotter, an attorney with the Department of Legislative Services, which serves as staff to General Assembly committees and works with lawmakers when writing bills. "I don't think it engendered a lot of debate. … It was one of those bills that just sails past people and doesn't get on anybody's radar screen." Miller, who was defeated in his bid for re-election on Nov. 7, said he filed the bill after a woman in Fairfax County contacted him last year. The woman's husband had killed the couple's

2-year-old daughter, then turned a gun on himself. She asked the Fairfax County Police Department not to release the toddler's name, but the agency "did it anyway, " Miller said. "She didn't want her girl's name dragged through the press, " he said. "She wanted closure." Miller said the bill's broadening to cover minors' deaths from "any crime" was intentional. "That's exactly what the intent was, " he said. "Does the public really need to know the name of the child? … If the mom or the dad of that 15-year-old doesn't want their child's name made public, I think it's very reasonable (to withhold it)." Miller, who said he was a police officer for 18 years, asserted that the new law won't harm the police or public. "You still get the elements, the circumstances, the suspect - all of that can be put out there, " he said. "How does putting John Doe's name in there there make any difference in the murder, especially if the family doesn't want it released? ... If the family thinks it's a good idea, then it's put out there. If the family doesn't want their child named, that's not the public's business - at all - in my opinion." Big shift in practice The Nov. 3 slaying in Newport News is the Peninsula's first homicide of a minor since the new law went into effect. At least 32 juveniles have been killed in homicides on the Peninsula since 2011 - ranging in age from 4 months to 17 years - according to Daily Press records. And over the years, local law enforcement has virtually always released the victims' names after family members were notified. Among them: In April 2015, Jada Richardson, 13, and Domingo Santiago Davis Jr., 17, were killed at a party at 25th Street and Wickham Avenue in Newport News. Then-Police Chief Richard W. Myers held a press conference the next day to talk about the case and try to bring in tips. In August 2014, Warwick High School students Bryant Wilder Jr., 16, and John A. "Lito" Nieves Jr., 17, were killed in a double-slaying behind Saunders Elementary School in Newport News, by a 16-year-old who is now in prison. In May 2013, Ralphael Davis, 16, was killed and other teens injured at the Hampton Coliseum Spring Carnival, in a case that people still talk about because the annual event hasn't occurred since. The deaths of younger children often spur even greater public interest. Those include Kyron Butler, 8, killed by a stray bullet while sleeping in his bed in Smithfield in 2003; Davion Mutts, 4, found dead in the brush off Hampton's Power Plant Parkway in 2005 after going missing; and Madyson Van Cleave-Hook, killed by her mother's boyfriend in

Newport News in 2013. Three members of the Ragin family - Sierra, 15; Rasheed, 10; and LaKwan, 6 - were stabbed to death by their stepfather in Newport News in 2011. Victims' names - as well as their pictures and interviews with family - can help provide a fuller story of young lives tragically cut short. The identities allow the public to see if they know the victims, and allows reporters to find family members who often want to talk about their loss. The stories can help bring public awareness to such issues as family abuse or children with guns. The names might eventually become public if a case goes to court, but that doesn't happen in every case. "You can't get the complete story without it, " Betsy Edwards, executive director of the Virginia Press Association, said of the names. A story with a "nameless child, " she said, just isn't the same on a human level. She pointed out that the new law would apparently cover not just children killed in intentional homicides, but those killed in many car accidents, too. Lawmakers sometimes overreact to particular scenarios, Edwards said. "One person comes to them with an issue, so they make a new law statewide, " she said. The woman in Fairfax "may have had a concern. That doesn't mean we need a new state law." But Edwards said lawmakers "may not have realized the full impact of this bill, " and changes might be needed. Megan Rhyne, the executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said she hasn't studied the new law, and "I didn't hear about this at all as this was happening." "But our general position is that law enforcement should be giving as much information as they can to keep the public informed about crime in their communities, " she said. "Any time there's a major change in policy regarding access that has been previously open that is no longer available, that is certain to raise eyebrows." Is it good for police? Some policing experts fear that the new law could make it more difficult to solve homicides. One local detective, for example, said it's important to get the names out "because you want people talking" about a case to spur crucial leads. Joseph L. Giacalone, a retired New York Police Department sergeant who once ran the cold case unit for the agency's Bronx division, said Virginia's new law "could impede investigations." "To provide the victims' names, as long as next of kin has been notified, I don't see it as an issue just because of their age, " said Giacalone, now an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "You could have an issue where people are not coming forward, " he said. "The police need the public's assistance in a lot of cases - not all cases, but a lot of cases. … And not being able to

use his picture or his name is going to hamper that because some people won't even know that the kid is no longer here." Witnesses' memories could be triggered by a name - such as if someone saw the victim being bullied by others, Giacalone said. Knowing who was killed, he said, might help connect the dots. In the Newport News case, a clerk at a convenience store across from the church told the Daily Press he wanted the 15-year-old's name to see if he might know him. Moreover, Giacalone said, the exemption for "law-enforcement reasons" could prove cumbersome in practice. "Having to go through a system of check-off boxes of when we can or can't release a name would be pretty onerous, " he said. "Then you have legal obligations that you are gonna have to make the police prove why they want to do it - and waste more time." "Once again, knee-jerk reactions by politicians make police work more difficult, " he said. 15-year-old slain At 10:40 p.m. on Nov. 3, the Newport News 15-year-old was found dead in the parking lot of the Macedonia Baptist Church, at 5500 Marshall Ave. Though police would not reveal the teen's identity, the Daily Press has confirmed that his name is Ervin Lamonte "E.J." Holloman Jr. The state medical examiner provides a cause and manner of death if the media or another requester provides a name. "Ervin Holloman Jr. died of a gunshot wound to the neck, " said Donna Price, the administrator for the state medical examiner's office's Tidewater district. Moreover, Holloman is named in a search warrant affidavit that police filed in Newport News Circuit Court on Nov. 7 to get access to Holloman's Facebook messages. The prohibition on police publicly revealing the name of a victim doesn't preclude the identity from showing up in court records - such as arrest warrants, search warrants and indictments - which often require the victim be named. "Nothing herein shall … affect the conduct of any criminal proceeding, " the new law says. Holloman's sister, whom a Daily Press reporter ran into at the church parking lot last week, declined to speak about her brother. Holloman's mother told a reporter that she wasn't yet ready to speak about his death. Talking to families Thurston, the Newport News police spokesman, said the teen's family has not asked that his name be publicly released - and police have not sought their permission to do so. "A family might come to the department and say, ‘You know, we want to have our loved one's name out there, '" Thurston said. "If they come to us, and they want the name out there, then they can give it to us in writing, and we will put it out there."

There will be cases, he said, when police will ask the family to come forward. "Sometimes there are times when an investigator will go to the family and say, ‘Do you mind talking to reporters and talking about your son or your daughter?' We do that in hopes that seeing grieving family members may spark some interest in people coming forward." Thurston said he asked investigators whether police should release the teen's name in the Nov. 3 case for "law-enforcement purposes, " and he was told, "Not at this time." He said the law-enforcement purposes exemption likely won't be onerous for police to cite. "I would think it could be several people sitting down and discussing it, " Thurston said. "Is it something that if we release the name, will it further the investigation? … Now, who would make the final decision on that, I don't know." It could be anyone from the case detective to the police chief, he said. Can it be changed? The new state law could be revisited going forward. Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police, said she didn't track Miller's bill as it went through the legislature. But she questioned what policy interest it serves to shield the names of all minors who die from crimes. "I don't know the public policy that we are advancing here by interpreting that beyond the intent of (Miller's original's bill), " Schrad said. "Is it good policy? This might be one of those housekeeping amendments that we need to go back in 2018 possibly and limit it." Del. Mike Mullin, D-Newport News, an assistant Suffolk commonwealth's attorney who voted for the bill, said he believes lawmakers' intent was limited to domestic abuse situations - "to allow the family the opportunity to decide how publicly to grieve their loss." "My recollection is that our intention when we put this through - and my intention when I was voting for it - was to make sure this was limited to when a family member is the alleged perpetrator of the crime, " Mullin said. "If the reality of the circumstance is that it's not being applied in that fashion, then that's something we should probably look at changing." He said it might be one of those bills "that just sort of went through" without lawmakers' full knowledge. Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, was the lone House of Delegates member to vote against the bill. "I always err on the side of transparency, " Rasoul said. A "gray area" in the legislation made him uneasy, he said - that the family member with the power to decide if the minor's name will be released will sometimes be the very "person who committed the offense."

Rasoul said lawmakers shouldn't necessarily "legislate by anecdote" - or pass bills because of what happened to one family. "There are some really good anecdotes on why this would be a good idea, " he said. But "it's hard for us to even imagine all the potential scenarios where this could go wrong, even though many times it could be a positive thing." Brian Coy, a spokesman for Gov. Terry McAuliffe, said the governor signed the bill into law because it got overwhelming support in both chambers and "the general intent of the law was to give privacy to difficult situations." "If members of the General Assembly are reconsidering the impact of that bill - if it's not exactly what they intended - then that's something that they can refine in future sessions, " Coy said. "That's the beauty of the process." Dujardin can be reached by phone at 757-247-4749.

Daily Press 4/23/2017

Should ‘life' mean never getting out? The pending release of a man convicted of a brutal 1981 murder sparks an emotional debate amid shifting attitudes about parole By Peter Dujardin

It was 36 years ago that Hampton Circuit Court Judge Nelson T. Overton ordered Timothy Jude Duffy to "confinement in the penitentiary ... for the term of his natural life" in a brutal slaying on Baxter Street in Fox Hill. In August 1981, Duffy was 18 years old when he killed a neighbor, 75-year-old Army veteran and historian James P. Welch, by slitting his throat "nearly to the spine, " and then setting his house on fire. Duffy was convicted of first-degree murder and arson and landed two consecutive life terms. But three weeks ago, the five-member Virginia Parole Board granted Duffy's release. The board said that Duffy, now 54, not only has been a model inmate, but has also shown atonement and "transformation" during his time locked away. Duffy will be released Sept. 4 from the Greensville Correctional Center - located north of Emporia, near Jarratt - if he completes a five-month re-entry program. Under his parole terms, he won't come back to Hampton, but will live with his brother in Texas. But Duffy's pending release - along with recent paroles granted to two other inmates from Hampton who got life sentences in a 1986 killing - raises age-old questions of justice versus redemption, and whether a life sentence should always mean that someone spends the rest of his or her days behind bars. "I believe in lengthy sentences for violent offenders, but I also believe in a reasonable pathway out, " said Adrianne L. Bennett, the Virginia Parole Board's new chairwoman. "The question is, how long is enough? And if someone doesn't appear to be a risk to public safety whatsoever, and has been in prison for decades since they were a teenager, what is the moral and correct response for us to take?" Parole, Bennett contends, gives inmates an incentive to reform. And at the time Duffy and many others were sent away for life, she said, "Parole was something that was built into their sentence." Under state law in place at the time, inmates sentenced to life for first-degree murder were eligible for annual parole consideration after 15 years. They were first considered after 20 years if they got two life terms.

But the paroles don't sit right with Hampton's top prosecutor, Commonwealth's Attorney Anton Bell, who said that if local judges and juries sentenced someone to prison for life, including a man "who all but decapitated someone, " the Virginia Parole Board shouldn't reverse them. "This is not right, " Bell said. "We think people are going to serve life, but they are not serving life. They are being released. ... You are setting aside the will of the community when they said that what you did was so horrendous that you should get life in this situation. And it's like the Parole Board is saying, ‘I don't care what the community has said ... We're going to override your fear or your judgment or your wisdom for your community.' " New leadership Duffy's parole comes against the backdrop of a recent shakeup at the helm of the Virginia Parole Board - a five-member body that serves at the pleasure of the governor - and new hope for inmate advocates who have been begging for more paroles. In January, Gov. Terry McAuliffe appointed Bennett - a board member since 2015 and an attorney whose legal background includes public defense work - as the board's chair. She replaced Karen N. Brown, of Hampton, a former prosecutor in Newport News and Chesapeake. McAuliffe then added Jean W. Cunningham, a former Richmond state lawmaker, to the panel. Virginia Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran wouldn't say why Brown was ousted. He thanked her for her service, calling her "very thorough and very committed." But Moran also said that McAuliffe "believes in parole and believes in second chances, " adding that, "We strive to make sure that all our boards and commissions reflect our goals." Brown declined Thursday to shed much light on her departure. "I brought an extensive background in victim advocacy to the Parole Board, and it is certainly the prerogative of the governor to have a board that reflects his vision, " she said. For more than 20 years, inmate advocates have complained that the Virginia Parole Board has been overly tight on releasing prisoners. Duffy went to prison in the 1980s, while parole was still fully in effect in Virginia. But in 1994, former Gov. George Allen - under the mantra of "truth in sentencing" - led a quest to abolish parole in Virginia. The reforms meant that anyone convicted in 1995 and later is not eligible for discretionary parole, except for a 15 percent good behavior credit and a shot at "geriatric release" beginning at age 60. At the time, there were tens of thousands of inmates already locked up. But those prisoners sometimes called "old law" inmates - have been complaining for years that they've been treated as if parole was abolished for them, too. One lawsuit asserted that the annual parole rate gradually fell from 40 percent before the 1995 changes to 5 percent by 2008 - spurred mostly by extremely low parole rates for violent crimes.

"The Parole Board just got really stingy about letting people out, " said Stephen A. Northup, a Richmond-area attorney who filed an unsuccessful federal lawsuit in 2009 accusing the board of retroactively abolishing parole for the old law inmates, too. "They let out just enough so they could not say that they had abolished it. But for all intents and purposes - for 95 percent of the old-law prisoners - there was no parole, and with each successive parole board, each one was equally hard-nosed." But now, Northup said, he's looking forward to what the new board might do. Second chances The number of inmates who still qualify for discretionary parole - for crimes in 1994 and earlier has fallen from tens of thousands in 1995 to only about 2,700 today, because of deaths and various releases over the years. That means many of the remaining cases are often murders, rapes and other serious crimes. With that backdrop, Bell says the changes on the board don't bode well. "I'm huge when it comes to redemption, " said Bell, a Christian minister in addition to a prosecutor. "I'm a huge advocate for second chances. I absolutely believe that people can reform, and that people can literally be transformed from who they used to be. But I also believe in consequences. There are certain crimes that you commit that I can't risk letting that person back out on the streets." As for Bennett, Bell said, "Her background is that of a public defender. She has served in a position to advocate for defendants, for those incarcerated. And I believe that bias has now crept into her judgment call concerning these cases." Though Bell said he's friends with Brown, the former board chair, he said that has nothing to do with his view. Bennett, of Virginia Beach, chafes at the notion that her main priority is releasing inmates. "I'm not the big bleeding heart criminal defense attorney that they try to make me out to be, " she said. "I'm trying to make sure we do the right thing by the community, and by our victims as well. ... I do believe in second chances, but my first priority will always be public safety. Nobody is willy-nilly hitting the ‘Grant' button here, I can assure you of that ... Recklessly releasing dangerous people into the community is not what is happening." "I am not ... going to open the floodgates and let people out, " Bennett added. "But I am going to look very closely, and if you look like a good candidate, I'm going to keep digging deeper and deeper until I can make the determination. People deserve a chance to be considered fairly." Bennett said her legal practice included not just part-time public defender work, but also divorces, custody disputes, child support and other civil work. She said she also represented "abused and neglected kids" as a court-appointed legal guardian, including "during criminal prosecutions of their perpetrator."

The 1981 Welch slaying was a well-known one in Hampton. It was April 1980 that Timothy Duffy, then 17, whose family lived on Essex Park Drive, first broke into Welch's home two blocks away, bound up his legs and arms, stuck him in the trunk of Welch's own car and drove away as part of a robbery attempt, before releasing him in Newport News. Welch, a World War II Army Air Corps veteran and Fort Monroe historian, was described by neighbors in a Daily Press story as "a genteel man" who "wouldn't hurt a flea." He reported the crime, landing Duffy on probation in Hampton juvenile court. But the conviction became an issue the next year when Duffy tried to get into the military - with a prosecutor saying Welch was killed the day after Duffy learned the military had rejected him. Welch was found in the ruins of a fire at his home at 2:45 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1981. A medical examiner later described a 5-inch gash at the front of Welch's neck "that went through the jugular veins, the back of the tongue and all the way to the spine, " nearly severing his head. Prosecutors said Duffy doused Welch with kerosene and set the home aflame, burning Welch beyond recognition. Duffy was charged with capital murder and arson. He had lots of family and friends supporting him in the courtroom and an attorney, Joseph J. Stellute, who strongly challenged the prosecution's case. The jury spared Duffy of capital murder, saying the robbery component wasn't proven. But they found him guilty of first-degree murder and arson, and recommended two life terms. Jury members speak Though at least five of the 12 jurors are now dead, two reached last week by the Daily Press said they were surprised to learn that Duffy is being paroled. The intent was that he actually serve life, they said. "I just never thought he would get out, " said juror Linda Bolz Gillespie, 64, who was 28 at the trial. She called the crime "horrendous, " saying she didn't think Duffy showed remorse. "Is there anything we can do to keep him in or anything?" she asked. "You see things on TV where they just know how to spin to get their way out, " Gillespie said. "I guess everybody wants a second chance. Would I want a second chance? Yeah. But only God knows if he's got a change of heart and he's really remorseful about it. I wish him luck, I guess, if they're going to let him out. I just hope he doesn't do anything crazy." Then she added with a laugh, "Just don't tell him where I live." Another juror, Enid Gardner, 84, said she wanted Duffy behind bars for life, but "36 years, that's quite a while, you know."

Bennett, the Parole Board chair, said a key moment in Duffy's parole came in January, when a well-regarded and longtime counselor with the prison system came to her office, just as the counselor was getting ready to retire. He asked her to visit Duffy and two others. "He was squeezing his papers tightly, and he said, ‘I've got three guys that have been in prison ... who were very young at the time of their offenses. They are excellent candidates for parole, and they wouldn't hurt anybody.' " But, he added, "They are never going to make it unless somebody comes from the Parole Board and sits down and really talks to them and digs beyond the offenses and learns what they have been doing in the course of almost 40 years." Inmate advocates have long criticized the Parole Board for not meeting many inmates eye to eye. "I said, ‘How is tomorrow for you?' " Bennett said. "And he unrolled his papers, and I swear I saw tears welling up in his eyes. He said, ‘I've been asking Parole Board members to come and see these guys for a long time.' " If not for that visit and the "very lengthy interview" with Duffy, Bennett said, "it's unlikely that I would have supported his release, because of the facts and circumstance of the case." A good prison record is important, she said, but so too are other factors. "I try to look at who they are, who they have developed into, and what they have done (while locked up), not just what they haven't done." She said she took into account that Duffy was so young - 18 - in 1981, saying he spoke convincingly about "his remorse and his growth and reflections." But what "sealed the deal, " Bennett said, was watching Duffy connect with sick inmates at a prison infirmary in a dog therapy program he volunteers with. "Watching him interact with the sick offenders, and how he was interacting with them through the dog - getting down on one knee, next to the bed, talking to the offender that's ill, lying in the bed - and really communicating to that person through the dog, " Bennett said. "It was so natural. It really made the things he was telling me about who he is today to appear to be an accurate picture." A changed heart The former Hampton prosecutor at Duffy's 1981 trial - who had opposed his release for years also withdrew his objection to parole after talking with Bennett about six weeks ago. Robert A. Boester said that when the jury gave Duffy two life terms, Virginia law said he would be eligible for parole in 20 years. Still, Boester said, he always thought "the odds were low that he would be released, " saying, "I would never have recommended to a jury a life sentence unless I believed it was appropriate." For years, Boester thought Duffy had it in him to seek revenge on him. But in the conversation with Bennett, Boester said, she "convinced me that he has owned up to what he did and does not pose a risk. She had a lot of information about how he has been a good prisoner - like a really good prisoner. And if they paroled him, they would likely parole him outside of Virginia."

Boester withdrew his objection "primarily based on my membership in Water's Edge Church and my belief in Christ, " he said. "I feel that God will protect me. And if (Duffy) does get out, I wish him well. He's been in a really long time, and I can't even fathom." Stellute, Duffy's defense lawyer in 1981, said he thought Duffy would one day be paroled - just like he said many other murderers were then. "Murder is murder, isn't it?" Stellute said. "There were a lot of life sentences prior to the parole system changing that got paroled ... But the interesting part is that when the system changed, he had a more difficult time with the Parole Board than if the system had not changed." Convicted man addresses parole In a phone interview from prison before he learned of his parole, Duffy said his brother in Texas owns a construction business and would give him a job. "I have to spread my wings and enter back into society as an adult male, " he said. Though he really liked Hampton, he said, "I might have burned my bridges there as an unthinking child, the impulsive kid that I was." "I need a blank slate, a clean slate, and just go from there - to be a successful and productive citizen, that's the goal, " Duffy said. He said he has two associate's degrees, is working on his bachelor's degree, and has basic skills ranging from shoe and chair repair to computer software and graphic arts. "I'm not totally unprepared, " he said. "I know that society was operating at a much more rapid pace than when I left. But having lived all this life behind bars, there's not a whole lot of luxuries that are necessary." The Parole Board certified Duffy's parole grant on April 4 - Duffy's 16th time up for consideration after serving the initial 20 years. Under the board's rules for murder cases, at least four of the five board members must vote to grant release, though how they voted isn't public. After Bell got word of the decision, he said it was a shame that Welch - a widower with no children and two late siblings - had no relatives to press their case at the Parole Board. Though the board sent the Hampton commonwealth's attorney's office a request for names of Welch's surviving family members, a search by a Hampton police detective turned up no known relatives. Welch's family members "might be dead or no longer in this area, " Bell said, but "he still deserves justice." "He doesn't matter?" Bell asked. "Who's advocating for the victims? Who's standing in the gap for the families? What happened to him was beyond horrendous. (Duffy) murdered this person out of pure revenge - because this man had the boldness and the courage to come forth and testify against him in a prior abduction case, he killed him for that."

Bell added: "What message do you send to other victims who have the courage to come forth and testify against their attacker? That is not a good message ... It's one thing to say a person makes youthful mistakes. It's a totally different thing for that so-called youthful mistake to be the intentional, purposeful, vengeful act of taking someone's life." Of the prison counselor getting teary eyed, Bell said, "That makes you want to question how much of this was an emotional decision that's in the best interests of the public and the victim who is no longer here to speak." Bennett, for her part, said she cares "greatly and very deeply about our victims, and I work diligently to be as careful and respectful to victims as possible. Sometimes it has an impact on my vote, and sometimes I have to vote despite the wishes of the victims." "But the victims' input is only one piece that we consider, " she said. "It doesn't drive the train, so to speak. That's why we don't have victims sitting behind the bench or sitting on juries for the offenders that they are associated with." "I always tell victims that parole is not an act of forgiveness, " Bennett said. "It will never be OK what happened to your loved one - ever. Nobody is every going to say that it is OK. That's not what parole is." Dujardin can be reached by at 757-247-4749 Daily Press 4/23/2017

Sidebar: Woman paroled in 1986 slaying reintegrates By Peter Dujardin

When Pamela Gwyn Scott was released from a state prison in October - after serving 30 years of a life sentence on a 1986 Hampton murder - she knew where to go first. Scott went to her father's place in Hampton, where he was struggling with terminal cancer. "He wasn't taking any chemo or any pain pills, " said Winnie Saunders, Scott's mother. "He wanted to try to hold on for her to get out. He was sitting in the chair waiting for her. And about four hours after they played a little bit and hugged, he said, ‘Pam, I got to go now.' " He died the next morning. Scott then went to her mother's home in North Carolina, where her parole plan required her to live, "and there was a hurricane going on down here, " Scott said. "We didn't have any electricity or water. ... Then my mother was in a car accident. It was, ‘Welcome back to life.' "

Things are normalizing now. Scott got a new dog, Shovel. "I've always been an animal lover, " she said. She also joined a church, landed a job at a hair salon, and began volunteering to cut women's hair at a nearby retirement home. In June 1986, Scott, then 23, and Charles Keith Fargis, then 31, were charged with capital murder and robbery in the slaying of David C. Ervin, 27, of Hampton. According to court records, Scott and Fargis picked up Ervin at Buckroe Beach. Then they took him to Dandy Point Road in Fox Hill, near an abandoned house, and shot several rounds into his face and head. They both pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of first-degree murder and were sentenced to life behind bars. But the Virginia Parole Board granted Scott's release last May, and she was released in October after a five-month re-entry program. Fargis, now 61, was granted parole in February, and is scheduled for release to Hampton in July. "I can't even tell you how sorry I am that it happened and how I wish I could take it back, " Scott said through streams of tears in her mother's living room. "There's no amount of words that I could sit here and say to you that could change any of it. ... My crime was horrible. I'm not going to sugarcoat it." Court records aren't exactly clear on the crime's motive but describe drug debts, murky threats and prior disputes involving others. Ervin, known as "Mugsy, " was "not just some random somebody you sold drugs to, " but a person she knew since she was 14, Scott said. She said she remembers "bits and pieces" of the crime, but not everything because she was "very high on drugs" at the time. Scott would not talk about what she remembers, saying she's hoping to sit down with one of Ervin's family members as part of a "restorative justice" program that encourages conversation between victims and perpetrators. "Until we have that opportunity to have that meeting, I just don't think it's fair, " Scott said. "If she had to hear anything of what happened, I think it should come from me. ... I don't want to cause more pain." Scott said she wants Ervin's twin daughters - only 3 when their father was killed - to know he was a good man. "I don't want them to think their father was a bad man or that he did something wrong, " Scott said. "It was all because we were all just in a world selling drugs, living in a bad place and dealing with people that we shouldn't. ... We were all just screwed up." One of Ervin's twin daughters, Charlene Amber Ervin, 34, of Hampton, said she can't believe Fargis and Scott got paroled. "This is unbelievable, " she said when a reporter told her Fargis would be released in July. "Obviously I'm appalled. I am kind of speechless ... Because I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would even have to think about this."

It's unfair, she said, that she "always had to wonder" what it would be like to have a father, and that her children don't have their grandfather. "I know that one day they will have to answer to a higher being, but I think that while they are here they should have to sit in jail for the rest of their lives, " she said. "I have a few pictures and stories and that's about what I get, " she said, recalling "vague memories" of her father "picking us up for the holidays and a birthday party, and that's pretty much about it." Hampton's top prosecutor, Commonwealth's Attorney Anton Bell, said David Ervin "was horrifically killed and his body dumped, " and that Scott and Fargis should stay in prison for life. "We are better than this, " he said. For someone to get a life term, Bell said, "This person's behavior is so egregious that they should never be afforded an opportunity to rejoin our community and put other lives at risk." But Hampton Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Robert B. Wilson V, the prosecutor on the 1986 case, said he has "no opinion one way or the other" on the paroles, saying "everyone knew" they'd be up for parole in 15 years. "It was all in the hands of the parole board, " he said. "You just didn't know. I guess it all depended on how they acted in the penitentiary and whatever the parole board considers." Adrianne L. Bennett, the Virginia Parole Board's chair, said Scott's mother had advocated for years for her daughter. In early 2016, Bennett and another board member went to visit Scott at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, in Goochland. "She showed tremendous remorse and was a leader in the (prison) community, " Bennett said. "She mentored younger women, tried to help them find the right path. ... Continuing to incarcerate her did not serve the interests of the (larger) community any longer." Bennett also said Scott "didn't have an easy go of it as a kid, " though "she convinced me she wasn't making any excuses for what she did." As for why Fargis was paroled, Bennett said, "it was very positive institutional adjustment and the length of incarceration. ... He now is a 61-year-old man. And from a culpability standpoint, I think they were both equally culpable." Over the years, Scott said, she became "really hard" in prison. But she began making strides in 2010, when "God told me to know his son, and that's when I really got a relationship with Jesus, and I really just started healing. I had a lot of shame, guilt and remorse. I carried a lot of that because I wasn't a bad person. I was a happy person. I just got messed up. I can't even tell you why or how. I just know that once I met Jesus, I really started healing." But Scott hopes other inmates can be released, too. "There are still people in there that's been locked up 25 to 35 years, but they have changed, " she said. "And they are rehabilitated and wouldn't be a risk to society, and I feel they deserve a second chance."

Daily Press 3/26/2017

Killings caught on tape Private investigator's video, 911 call, police body camera footage prove a powerful combination in Newport News double homicide By Peter Dujardin

Many homicides end with the killer running off into the cover of night and would-be witnesses telling police they didn't see or hear a thing. Then there's the case of Laratio Lorenzo Dantzler. When Dantzler, 34, killed two men in broad daylight on Wickham Avenue near 14th Street on Jan. 14, 2016, three pieces of evidence - video surveillance footage, a neighbor's 911 call and a recording from a police officer's body camera - combined to give a clear picture of the crime and its aftermath. A private investigator working for the Newport News shipyard's workers compensation insurance firm - looking for evidence that a yard worker was faking a disability claim - just happened to be down the block. That investigator, Jason Gilliam, heard a minivan crash into a parked pickup truck. From inside his work vehicle, he then turned his high-tech video camera toward the ensuing commotion, zooming in and panning from side to side as needed. That footage, which began rolling just after 11:02 a.m., captures a robbery in progress, with two men holding another man at gunpoint outside the crashed van, while another victim remained in the vehicle. All four men are back in the van by 11:04 a.m. One of the robbers then gets out of the van and scurries away. Then, at 11:05 a.m., one of the men - later determined to be Dantzler - leans into the van, appears to shoot into it, then runs away holding a handgun. Investigators say he fired 13 bullets into two pinned men. As police responded to the scene, Gilliam told arriving officers, "I have the whole thing on tape." Just after the van crashed minutes earlier, a nearby resident looking out her window called 911, giving the dispatcher a live play-by-play of events. "Oh, I hear gunshots!, " she shouted a few minutes into the call, crying and getting increasingly emotional. She managed to give a good description of both men who fled. But she said through tears that she no longer saw anyone moving in the gray van. "He shot everybody in the car, " she told the dispatcher.

That woman's descriptions and sobs - and the silent video from the private investigator - made for a powerful combination in court. Then there was the body camera footage from one of the responding Newport News officers, Master Police Officer Jamie Acree. The camera rolled as she raced to the crash - speeding up when the call was upgraded to a shooting - and encountered Dantzler. (Body cameras are devices that record events while mounted to an officer's uniform or glasses). According to trial testimony, another Newport News police officer, Sgt. Brendan Bartley, first saw and confronted Dantzler in front of a residence on Roanoke Avenue, near Stuart Gardens. Acree's body camera captures her hopping out of her police car and facing Dantzler in a tense standoff behind that building. "Drop gun! drop gun! Do it! Do it now!" she screamed loudly. Then she fired a single shot from about 30 yards away. "Drop it! Get on the ground! Get your hands off the gun! Take your hands off the gun!" Dantzler - who wasn't always completely viewable on that body camera footage - was hit once by a bullet from Acree's gun, having already been struck twice by bullets fired by Bartley in the front of the building. Both officers testified that Dantzler had refused orders to drop a gun before they fired. Dantzler, with two guns found near him, was hit twice in the abdomen and once in the shoulder. He was released from the hospital four days later. Investigators were also able to link Dantzler's DNA to the gun used in the killings. After a three-day trial in Newport News Circuit Court, a 12-member jury deliberated for just over an hour before finding Dantzler, of Newport News, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Ca'dre Antwoine Gray, 38, of Norfolk, and Quinton Antonio Kelly, 30, of Newport News. The jury then recommended Dantzler get two life sentences, plus 65 years on related charges, and the judge agreed. The case's lead investigator, Newport News Master Police Officer Richard Espinoza, said that of about 200 homicide cases he's handled in his career, this was the strongest one he's had in terms of the evidence. Though he's had other cases in which business surveillance systems captured crimes, he said, "This was the first time I ever had someone who just happened to be on the block, doing something totally different, then turning toward the crime and capturing it on tape." "It's very powerful evidence, and it's very compelling evidence, " Espinoza said. "It's undeniable. Who watches a video and doesn't believe what they're seeing? It's not circumstantial. There's no ambiguity. You're watching it."

Even Dantzler's defense lawyer, Joshua Goff, acknowledged that the evidence was a lot to overcome. "Sometimes things are caught on surveillance footage, and sometimes you have 911 callers who see things, but to have a 911 caller who is narrating a play-by-play and also have it captured on video is really kind of extraordinary, " Goff said. "It proved to be very compelling evidence for the commonwealth." Joe Giacalone, a retired New York Police Department sergeant who once ran the cold case unit for the department's Bronx division, says video footage is now one of the very first things detectives seek after a crime. "Investigators are always looking for those opportunities, but in this case you end up hitting a home run by sheer luck - to have a P.I. out there, " said Giacalone, who's been an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York since 2012. "For investigative purposes, (video) is one of the greatest things that we can have. It's actually giddy for an investigator. You're like a school kid. It's like Christmas morning, getting a video like that." Not only can video evidence - which has improved greatly in quality in recent years - home in on a suspect and save investigators countless hours, but it also works well with a jury. "We are visual people, " Giacalone said. "We like seeing things on video. ...Your jurors are out there, they're watching ‘CSI Miami.' They almost demand these things now. ... And it's direct evidence. ... It is what it is. We saw you point the gun at the guy and shoot. There's no, sense of, ‘Oh, it wasn't me, ' or some sort of circumstantial evidence where you have to make an inference." This isn't the first local homicide case to be caught on video. In 2007 in Newport News, a graphic surveillance tape at H&H Market, near the intersection of Madison Avenue and 35th Street, captured Larry Eugene Christian, then 28, recognized by his "distinctive goatee, " approaching Shawnell Roscoe, 29, and another man, trying to rob them, and then shooting Roscoe in the back. Christian was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. In Hampton, there's the pending case of a double slaying outside the White Oak Lodge, on Kecoughtan Road, in April 2013. Investigators say the defendant, Rahmeal Perry, then 18, was seen on video footage inside the bar, wearing distinctly reflective shoes. Though the video footage from outside was dark and grainy, similar shoe reflections could still be seen. Perry goes to trial in June on two counts of first-degree murder. But few cases beat Dantzler's in terms of the overall strength of the footage.

That morning in January 2016, according to trial testimony, four men were riding around together in the gray minivan. They were all involved in a check fraud scheme in which they would cash phony checks at area credit unions. But that morning, Dantzler got turned down at a credit union in York County. And as the four men drove around, Dantzler asked the driver, Damon Harriott, to stop and pick up another man, Stephen L. Hayes, 27, of Newport News. Harriott, 42, of Norfolk, testified that within moments of picking up Hayes - and as the minivan headed down Wickham Avenue - Dantzler and Hayes both pulled out handguns. They announced to the three other men - Harriott, Gray and Kelly - that they were being robbed. That's when Harriott said he decided, as a means of escape, to crash the van into a parked pickup truck, then jump out "movie style" and run down the street. The sound of that crash is what caused the neighbor to call 911. And it's what caused the private investigator to pan over with his high-tech camera. Hayes, charged with three counts of attempted robbery, two counts of abduction and nine gun charges, will go to trial April 24. Much of the same evidence used to convict Dantzler is also expected to be used against Hayes. Dujardin can be reached by phone at 757-247-4749.