HAMPTON — Just before defendants are about to be sentenced, the judge asks them if they want to say anything.Most times, defendants opt to say nothing. But sometimes, what follows is perhaps a brief plea for mercy, an apology to the family, or an assertion of innocence.
But John Anya-Onwuka — being sentenced in Hampton Circuit Court Monday for murder in the slaying of his ex-wife — rambled for more than an hour and a half. The hand-written statement began with being in his mother's womb.
A court reporter had difficulty transcribing Anya-Onwuka's words, due to his low tone and thick Nigerian accent. Judge Wilford Taylor Jr. even took a short recess to "stretch."
But after the statement — which lasted from about 4:20 p.m. to just before 6 p.m. — Taylor sentenced Anya-Onwuka, 50, to life in prison in the murder, plus three years for using a knife in a felony in the slashing death of his ex-wife, Gloria Anya-Onwuka, in 2006. The couple was divorced, but lived together in the upscale Farmington subdivision.
"It's the first time I had a defendant give his entire life story at that point in the case," said Anya-Onwuka's court-appointed lawyer, Stephen J. Weisbrod. Then again, he was also the first client who ever pleaded guilty to first-degree murder without a plea agreement.
Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Anton Bell twice objected to the statement while Anya-Onwuka was reading it. But Taylor declined to stop him.
The Daily Press reporter could not hear much of the statement, but Bell said the gist was: "Everybody was bad, and he was a saint." Bell said Anya-Onwuka never apologized to his ex-wife's family, including her mother who traveled from Nigeria for the hearing.
Weisbrod said he apologized "in a roundabout way."
During Monday's testimony, the victim's brother, Emeka Renner, glared at Anya-Onwuka in court, saying: "I want to know why you did what you did. That was a defenseless woman."
Weisbrod said the statement tends to show Anya-Onwuka is mentally ill. Taylor denied Weisbrod's motion before the sentencing to have Anya-Onwuka evaluated for a third time.
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