1st US Execution For A Female Since 2005 Set For September

RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia woman who used sex and money to persuade two men to kill her husband and her stepson to collect a $250,000 life insurance policy was scheduled Thursday to be executed in two months, which would be the first U.S. execution of a woman in five years.

A judge set a Sept. 23 execution date for Teresa Lewis, 41, the only woman on Virginia's death row. She would be the first woman executed in the state in nearly a century.

Lewis offered herself and her 16-year-old daughter for sex to two men who committed the killings. She provided money to buy the murder weapons and stood by while they shot her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr., 51, and stepson Charles J. Lewis, 25, in 2002 in Pittsylvania County in south-central Virginia.

Lewis rummaged through her husband's pockets for money while he lay dying and waited nearly an hour before calling 911.

The gunmen, Rodney Fuller and Matthew Shallenberger, were sentenced to life in prison. Shallenberger committed suicide in prison in 2006.

Lewis' daughter, Christie Lynn Bean, served five years because she knew about the plan but remained silent.

Lewis' attorney James Rocap III claims Shallenberger said about two years before his suicide that it was him, not Lewis, who planned the killings and that he was using Lewis to get to her husband's money.

"The truth about her involvement in the tragic deaths of Julian and C.J. Lewis does not require or justify her execution, especially in light of the fact that the lives of those who actually gunned down Julian and C.J. were spared," Rocap said.

Lewis would be the first woman executed in the U.S. since Frances Newton died by injection in Texas. Newton shot her husband and two young children to death to collect insurance money.

Lewis would also be the first woman executed in Virginia since 1912, when 17-year-old Virginia Christian died in the electric chair for suffocating her employer.

Women commit about 12 percent of the murders in the U.S. annually, and few ever reach the execution chamber.

Out of more than 1,200 executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, only 11 women have been executed. Of the more than 3,200 inmates on death row nationwide, 53 are women.

Women usually don't commit torture murders, they aren't serial killers and often don't have a history of other violent crimes compared with men who get sentenced to death, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. They also typically kill someone they know.

"I think it's those facts, rather than just gender that make the difference," he said.

Lewis' first attempt to kill her husband failed. The plan was for the men to kill her husband as he came home from work and make it look like a robbery, but a car was too close and foiled the plot. A few days later she found out her stepson was coming home on leave from Army National Guard duty, and they decided to wait and kill him, too, so they could get all the insurance money.

Lewis pleaded guilty to capital murder, allowing a judge to determine her sentence. Her attorneys believed she stood a better chance of getting a life prison term from the judge who had never sentenced anyone to death, than from a jury.

In a 2004 interview with The Associated Press, Lewis said she hired the hitmen to escape an abusive relationship. She said she and Shallenberger became lovers and concocted the scheme to murder her husband, who she said was an abusive alcoholic.

In a hearing before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March, Rocap argued that Lewis was too dependent on other people and prescription drugs to have plotted the murders. He said the trial lawyers' failure to raise dependency disorder and drug addiction as mitigating factors at sentencing violated Lewis' constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel.

Rocap said he would appeal her case to the U.S. Supreme Court and will file a clemency request with Gov. Bob McDonnell.

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Another Promising Life Cut Short- This Never Should Have Happened!

The promising young researcher had come to Baltimore from his home in Florida, after attending college in Michigan and working with stem cells in Japan, where he became fluent in the language. Here, he assisted with breast cancer studies at the Johns Hopkins University and was poised to enroll in medical school.

(street where the stabbing took place)

He was four blocks from his Charles Village apartment Sunday night when two robbers took his life for cash and a cell phone.
Dropped off at Penn Station after a weekend trip to New York to visit his sister, 23-year-old Stephen Pitcairn was talking to his mother on his iPhone at about 11 p.m. and walking north in the 2600 block of St. Paul St. when a man and woman demanded money.

Police say he turned over his wallet, then took a knife to the chest.

A resident was in his home ironing when he saw three people who appeared to be fighting, then heard a scream. He ran outside, saw Pitcairn lying on his stomach in the gutter and called 911.

"I made it back and held his hand, and I told him that everything was going to be OK," said the man, who was shaken and did not want to give his name. "He said, 'Help me,' and then I held his hand until he expired. I didn't want him to be alone.

"Nobody wants to die alone."

Police said Pitcairn was officially pronounced dead at Maryland Shock Trauma center after midnight. He would have turned 24 Tuesday.

Anthony Guglielmi, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said Pitcairn's mother heard the robbery over the phone.

Police arrested and charged two people in connection with the crime, each one with a predictable rap sheet. Lavelva Merritt, 24, has a long history of drug-related arrests and convictions. John Alexander Wagner, 34, has been charged in robberies and assaults, never receiving anything more than what amounted to time served, even after violating his probation repeatedly, court records show.

Wagner's most recent arrest occurred in late April, when police used surveillance cameras to locate Wagner and a man who said Wagner had put him in a headlock and taken his belongings. The victim pointed out Wagner, who he said had first asked him if he was "BGF" — a member of the Black Guerilla Family gang — or "J," a reference to Jamaa, a Swahili word meaning "family" that is used by BGF members.

Prosecutors dropped the charge on May 18. On a form documenting the decision to place the case on the "inactive docket," prosecutors checked boxes indicating the victim did not appear and "gave statements inconsistent with evidence or otherwise lacks credibility"

Pitcairn's death was one of five killings over the weekend as city officials say crime is on the decline. An unidentified man was fatally shot in the head earlier Sunday while sitting in a vehicle in East Baltimore; two other men were killed a day earlier on the east side in unrelated incidents.
Those killings occurred in traditionally more dangerous enclaves of the city's east side, where gunshots are more frequent and memorials mark light posts. Pitcairn's death came in a neighborhood generally regarded as safe, though that distinction can seem fleeting: The Charles Village Benefits District, which encompasses four neighborhoods where residents pay for extra services, has seen six homicides so far this year, including the shooting of a reputed gang member from nearby Barclay.

Pitcairn, of Jupiter, Fla., studied economics at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. After graduating in 2009, he pursued an interest in medicine and research to land a job at Hopkins that summer, in part due to a personal recommendation from former university President William Richardson, a faculty member at Kalamazoo.

"At that point, I knew he was a pretty special person," said Dr. Gregg Semenza, of the Institute for Genetic Medicine.

Semenza hired Pitcairn for a junior position, but was quickly impressed with his thirst for knowledge and soft-spoken confidence. He had spent a year in Japan doing stem-cell research, soaking up the culture. When Japanese visitors came to the lab in April, Pitcairn conversed with them in their language and talked about restaurants.

On July 1, Semenza promoted him to a lab manager position, which he said was essentially his "right-hand man," and recommended him for enrollment in Hopkins' School of Medicine.

"This was a guy who just had a whole future in front of him," Semenza said. "You knew he was going to do great things."

Daniele Gilke, who worked with Pitcairn and counted him as a friend, said he had been in New York visiting his sister, something he did often. She said he had applied to several medical schools, shadowed a prominent Hopkins transplant surgeon and taught MCAT classes twice a week.

"Stephen always struck me as a person who didn't believe in obstacles," she wrote in an e-mail.

Dr. Edward D. Miller, dean and chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine, called Pitcairn's death a "tragedy for his family, his friends, for our institution and for science" and expressed hope for a rapid arrest and conviction.

"This is a terrible, terrible loss," Miller said in a statement.

There have been several high-profile incidents involving Hopkins students, including a break-in at a student's off-campus house last fall in which an intruder was killed with a samurai sword. Fraternity member Christopher B. Elser was killed in 2004 after a struggle with a knife-wielding burglar. The next year, a man fatally beat student Linda Trinh. The two student deaths prompted the university to beef up security on and off campus.

"The loss of any member of our Johns Hopkins community impacts us all," Ronald J. Daniels, president of the university, said in a statement. "But the loss of a vital young man of such potential, intent on dedicating his life to helping others, is especially tragic. Everyone at the university joins me in expressing our sympathies to Stephen's family, colleagues and friends."

Pitcairn's relatives in Florida declined to comment.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/

Sympathy is not enough. The word tragic does not quite explain it! Sorry won't bring this young man back. And the horrible part about all of this is that in a few days, a few weeks, his name will be almost forgotten and he will only be a statistic in the city's crime report. This young man, along with the others that have lost their lives to thugs like these will no longer have a face..........except with the family, friends and colleagues who will always love him and will miss him forever.

This type of crime should NEVER be allowed to happen in ANY city in America and it's a darn shame when walking down an American street can get you killed! Two worthless thugs are still alive today, sitting in a jail cell that probably feels more like home to them than home itself. They've done this before and if tried and let free again they will repeat.

Stephen Pitcairn, his family, and all other families that have faced losing a loved one at the hands of a killer have no more time. They were cheated by the judicial system and those that operate it.

I can't imagine listening to my childs voice from my cell phone as they are murdered........stabbed repeatedly to death and I can't help my child.

Johnny Strand- Slain Manager of Pizza Hut To Be Honored

Slain Pizza Hut Manager Johnny Strand will be memorialized this

Saturday, July 17 at 11:00 AM

at his former restaurant in Onley, Va.



The public is invited to the event.


A plaque honoring Strand will be mounted in the dining room in the Onley Pizza Hut. Plans for a scholarship fund in honor of Strand are currently being talked over and will be announced soon.

Strand was found murdered at his Melfa residents on May 1st after he did not report to work. Fernando Carrillo Sanchez, 23 of Accomac, was arrested on May 5th in connection with Strands death and charged with 2nd degree murder. Sanchezs preliminary hearing will be at 11:00 AM on August 6th in Accomack's General District Court.

2010 Eastern Shore Citizen of the Year Slain In Her Home

EXMORE – Sharone White Bailey, the 2010 Eastern Shore Citizen of the Year who was slain at her home Friday in broad daylight, was fatally stabbed, according to a report from the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office on Saturday morning also released the name of the man accused in the killing.


Derrick Demond Epps, 36, of Exmore, is charged with first degree murder, entering a dwelling house with intent to commit murder, and assault and battery of a police officer, according to Sheriff’s Office Major David Doughty.
Doughty said the office received a 1:36 p.m. emergency call for a stabbing at 11098 Occohannock Neck Road, Exmore.
When officers arrived on the scene they discovered the body of Bailey, 57, who was a part owner and clinical director for Belle Haven-based Therapeutic Interventions, a community mental health provider.
Shortly after officers arrived on the scene Epps was apprehended and charged.
He is being held at the Eastern Shore Regional Jail with bond denied.

The sheriff’s office was assisted by the Exmore Police Department, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, and the Virginia State Police.
“Due to the fact that there is a continuing investigation into this matter no further information will be released at this time,” said Doughty in a prepared release.
Virginia Department of Transportation workers on Friday afternoon blocked access to Bailey's residence while authorities collected evidence at the crime scene.
Last month she was named 2010 Eastern Shore Citizen of the Year at the Eastern Shore of Virginia Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting, held at the Eastern Shore Yacht and Country Club.
Jeanette Edwards, director of Human Resources and Development for Eastern Shore Rural Health System Inc., who nominated Bailey and presented her with the award, called Bailey "an extraordinary individual whose leadership skills, kind spirit and compassion create a better community for all who live, work and love the Eastern Shore."
Bailey was an active member and secretary of the Eastern Shore Rural Health Board of Directors and has spearheaded efforts through churches and agencies to raise funds for the new Onley Community Health Center.
http://www.delmarvanow.com/

Federal Witness Killed After Name Is Leaked

Kareem Guest ignored the "stop snitching" credo, and authorities say his candid chatter to the FBI about drug dealers got him killed. The woman police say saw him get shot won't talk about it, and prosecutors have charged her with lying to a grand jury and want her imprisoned for 30 years.

It is at first glance an all-too-familiar and tragic tale of witness intimidation and a demonstration of the collateral damage of Baltimore's epic drug war, but with a sardonic twist: The silence of one witness has thwarted efforts to make an arrest in the silencing of another.

Authorities say they caught Raine Zircon Curtis bragging on a cell phone to her imprisoned boyfriend: "Kareem got killed last night. They killed that boy while we was right there. … We was standing right there." Yet to a grand jury, she denied seeing anything, court documents say.

As a result, Guest's execution-style slaying in September 2009 on a walkway known as "the blacktop" in South Baltimore's Westport neighborhood has gone unsolved, and for FBI agents who protect their informants like one of their own, it has gone unavenged.
Authorities say that a defense attorney gave his client's mother a copy of Guest's statement, which was distributed in Westport and might have been the reason Guest was outed and killed.

Defense attorneys have argued that witnessing the killing of a witness might understandably make one hesitant to become a witness. But Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Purcell Jr. wrote in court documents that Curtis was not being obstinate out of fear and should be held in jail pending trial on a rarely used perjury charge.

"Outside the grand jury, the defendant has expressed pride in her refusal to cooperate with authorities," Purcell wrote. "The defendant's refusal is based on her disregard for Guest and his family, her obvious contempt for the justice system and her overarching loyalty to the code of the streets."

The prosecutor charged that Curtis "has expressed pride in not being a 'snitch,' " and considered the perjury charge "a joke."

Curtis' attorney, Joseph Murtha, has asked a federal judge to reconsider holding his client without bail until her trial, and a hearing has been scheduled July 9 in U.S. District Court. Murtha declined to comment on the case.

Guest, 31, was shot repeatedly in the head and chest on Sept. 20, 2009, at 10 p.m. He collapsed on Maisel Court, near where he had lived with his mother, and died 36 minutes later at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.

In one of those familiar bloody Baltimore weekends, he was one of 13 people shot over two days — one more name on a burgeoning list noting the violence but saying virtually nothing of the circumstances.

City police and the news media (though the City Paper profiled the case this month) initially dismissed Guest as a routine victim, a man on probation for drugs, leaving the impression that he was killed, like many others, in some sort of petty dispute over heroin.

The FBI knew better.

Guest, despite his personal battle with drugs, or perhaps to get favorable consideration on pending charges, sat down with FBI agents in January 2008 and provided enough information to fill nine typewritten pages describing the intricate life of slinging heroin called "Dynasty" on Westport streets.

The tips helped the FBI arrest eight people seven months later sporting nicknames like Playboy, Pooh, Marly Mar and Fingers. By May 2009, six had pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges, including ringleader Jamal Stewart, who is serving a 22-year prison sentence.

Two others demanded trials, and federal prosecutors had to give Guest's statement to their defense attorneys as part of a process called discovery, to give attorneys a chance to prepare their cases and research potential witnesses. Just before the trial, in June 2009, those two men pleaded guilty as well.

That spared Guest from having to testify in public.

But it wouldn't spare him apparent retribution on the street.

"By then … the damage that led to the murder of Kareem Guest had already been done," federal prosecutors said in court papers.

Two defense lawyers had Guest's statement. The prosecutors wrote that one of the attorneys gave the documents to his jailed client and to his client's mother. It was done, prosecutor Purcell said in court documents, "without permission from the U.S. attorney's office and in direct violation of the discovery agreement put in place to prevent these very sorts of disclosures."

Purcell wrote that the documents were "distributed and displayed … throughout Westport" and that "several individuals confronted Guest" about what he had told the police. Guest was killed three months after his statement first started appearing on the streets.

Prosecutors don't specifically name the two attorneys who got the forms. But they said in court documents that they did not give them to the six attorneys whose clients had pleaded guilty by May 2009 because their cases ended before trial dates were set.

The documents were given to two attorneys whose clients held out until June, prosecutors said. Court records show those defendants as Larry Cheese, represented by attorney Michael Carithers, and Elliot Brown, represented by attorney David R. Solomon.

Carithers left his Baltimore law firm and could not be reached for comment. Phone numbers to his house and cell phone have been disconnected.

Solomon said in an interview that he reviewed Guest's statement with his client, which is permissible, but said that "under no circumstances did I give him any of the paperwork." Solomon also said he has talked with prosecutors and has been "cleared of any wrongdoing."

It is not clear whether distributing copies of the FBI statements is a crime or would be considered a breach of ethical conduct.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment, and a spokeswoman for the Maryland U.S. attorney's office would not say whether defense attorneys are being investigated. The spokeswoman, Marcia Murphy, did say that no attorney has been charged in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, authorities are still trying to determine who killed their star witness.
www.baltimoresun.com

Husband Arrested In Venus Stewart Murder Case

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WAVY) - A Michigan woman's estranged husband has been arrested in connection with her disappearance.

A prosecutor in St. Joseph's County, Michigan announced Wednesday, Douglas Stewart is charged with murder and conspiracy. Douglas, who has ties to Newport News, was arrested and taken into custody Tuesday night.

His estranged wife Venus vanished from her parents' home near Kalamazoo, Mich., on April 26. At that time, Doug told police he was at his home in Newport News. Someone was in Newport News making transactions on his accounts, so the alibi appeared to be legitimate.

In May, police in Michigan and Newport News asked the public for information about anyone who might have impersonated Doug Stewart.

St. Joseph County Prosecuting Attorney John McDonough said investigators spoke with a man Tuesday who admitted to portraying Doug in Newport News. McDonough said the co-conspirator had been "extremely cooperative."

Authorities are not releasing many details about the man, such as his age, hometown, or relationship to Douglas Stewart; however, WAVY.com has learned he is not from Hampton Roads.

A relative told WAVY sister station WOOD TV that Stewart met the co-conspirator through an online video game. As of Wednesday night, the man had not been charged with a crime.

McDonough said Stewart and the impersonator started planning in early April. According to McDonough, evidence and interviews with several people including the co-conspirator, lead him to believe Venus is dead.

McDonough said he believes Stewart abducted, killed, and disposed of his wife's body, then went back to Newport News, met up with his look-alike, and exchanged clothes.

Dustin Jasper, Venus's brother, said after so many weeks of hoping she would be found alive, the latest developments are tough on the family.

"I just feel so bad that all this had to come this way... it's just terrible," he said.

In a report from WOOD TV , Colleen Roussey said: "[Doug] was such a controller."

Roussey, a friend of Venus' parents continued, "I just knew he killed her. He had to have killed her. We're all just -- we're calling each other and crying. It is so horrible for all of us, because we've all been working so hard to bring that girl home. And that didn't happen."

McDonough explained prosecuting the case may be more difficult without a body, but he said there is strong evidence. He added though that finding Venus is a "number one priority."

Stewart is being held at the St. Joseph County Jail on $4 million bond.

Census Worker Fatally Shot In Southeast Baltimore

A U.S. Census worker was killed while dropping off a co-worker in Southeast Baltimore last week, according to police and the Census Bureau.

Spencer Williams, 22, was found shot June 7 inside his vehicle, which had pulled onto a median in the 1100 block of New Hope Circle, police said. He died Friday morning at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Williams was a crew leader responsible for a group of census takers who are doing follow-up visits at the homes of people who did not mail in their questionnaires by April, a Census Bureau spokeswoman confirmed. Malkia McLeod confirmed a Washington Post report that Williams was returning home after driving a co-worker home at the end of the day, and was considered to still be on the job.

Police and census officials said the shooting was not believed to be related to any census field work but was considered an on-the-job death. Officials were investigating the death as possibly domestic-related. Spencer did not have a criminal record.

Since the Census Bureau began making follow-up house calls in late April, workers across the country have been harmed or threatened 252 times, McLeod said. That includes 11 times when shots were fired at them, and 86 times when they were threatened with weapons such as guns, axes and crossbows.

Also, police said a man who was shot early Sunday in the 200 block of N. Rose St. has died. Police found Avon Beasley, 25, lying in a rear yard, suffering from a single gunshot wound to the torso about 2 a.m. He was transported to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:50 a.m.

Beasley had multiple drug convictions, most recently in 2007, and a handgun conviction. Police do not have a suspect or know of a motive in his killing.

www.baltimoresun.com

Suspect Still Wanted In Pocomoke Murder

POCOMOKE CITY, Md. - A Virginia man was gunned down in Pocomoke City and now police are looking for the alleged shooter.

Police say gunfire rang out around 10 PM Wednesday night on the corner of Laurel and Fifth Streets. Investigators say Reginald Handy Junior later died at the hospital.

One resident who spoke with us off camera says the shooting happened near her home and has left her restless, "you got groups of kids walking around shooting each other, I'm not used to that, I used to live in Baltimore for a couple years, I heard and saw things, but nothing ever this close."

No word yet on a possible motive. Police say they have a first degree murder warrant out for a suspect but, say they will not release his name until he is in custody.

www.wmdt.com

Man Shoots Himself After Being Wanted In Slaying Girlfriend

PARKSLEY — The suspect in a Hampton Roads-area homicide fatally shot himself Friday at a traffic stop on U.S. Route 13 here.

Clarence Justin Clayton, 29, of Nelsonia, was pronounced dead at the scene, Accomack County Sheriff Larry Giddens said.

Authorities had been searching for Clayton, who was driving a red 2006 Mercedes-Benz, since the Thursday night shooting of his former girlfriend in the city of Portsmouth.

The woman, Mary Jane C. Abad, 22, of Virginia Beach, had two young children and was three months pregnant, according to reports. She had been shot several times.

Giddens said Clayton was believed to be armed and dangerous and faced a charge of first-degree murder and a weapons charge. He also was charged with stealing the vehicle.

The vehicle was observed at 9:20 a.m. Friday on Nelsonia Road. Accomack deputies initiated a traffic stop on Lankford Highway.

Before they could converge on the vehicle, Clayton shot himself, Giddens said.

The incident took place near the highway’s intersection with Whites Neck Road.

Investigators from the Accomack County Sheriff’s Office and Detectives from the Portsmouth Police Department are currently processing the 2006 red Mercedes-Benz and surrounding area.

The Sheriff’s Office was assisted in this case by the Virginia Department of Transportation and Parksley Police Department.

http://www.easternshorenews.com/