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Alexandria serial killer set to be formally sentenced Virginia serial killer Charles Severance sentenced to life in prison
(about 5 hours later)
A Fairfax County Circuit Court judge on Thursday is expected to formally impose a life-in-prison sentence on convicted serial killer Charles Severance, who was found guilty late last year of three, terrifying murders in Alexandria over the course of nearly a decade. Convicted serial killer Charles Severance again sparred with a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge at his formal sentencing Thursday, trying unsuccessfully to have the hearing postponed and his attorneys dismissed immediately. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison.
The jurors who convicted Severance recommended the penalty in November, and while prosecutors and defense attorneys might argue over nuanced, legal matters, it is all but certain that Judge Randy I. Bellows will impose it Thursday. From the moment he was wheeled into the courtroom, Severance, who was found guilty late last year of three, terrifying murders in Alexandria over the course of nearly a decade, made clear he intended to speak his mind.
Leaning forward into the microphone, he said “sadism, sadism,” then tried to have his attorneys removed. Asked for a statement before the sentence was imposed, Severance rambled: “According to the Book of Common Prayer, the Church of England, 16th century, during the reign of The Tudors, Henry VIII, Elizabeth, the 37th article, religion, it is lawful to wear weapons.” He went silent.
[Charles Severance is found guilty of murder][Charles Severance is found guilty of murder]
Severance was convicted of murder in the February 2014 slaying of music teacher Ruthanne Lodato, the November 2013 shooting of regional transportation planner Ronald Kirby and the December 2003 killing of real estate agent Nancy Dunning. Prosecutors said bitterness over a child custody battle that he lost and a general hatred of Alexandria’s elite motivated him to shoot the victims — all apparently strangers to him — in daylight attacks at their homes. Earlier, Severance told the judge his attorneys had made “statements against my interests” and asked him to postpone the hearing because he was not informed of the weather-driven decision to move the proceedings from Friday to Thursday.
Thursday’s hearing could offer Severance an opportunity to share his views on the case; the wheelchair bound 55-year-old has frequently sparred with judges in court, and he recently wrote to a Washington Post reporter, taking aim The Post, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, and the parents and boyfriend of Alison Parker, the Roanoke reporter shot to death on live television in August. Fairfax County Circuit Court judge Randy I. Bellows rejected Severance’s requests and ultimately imposed the life-in-prison sentence, three times over with 48 more years tacked on. Choking back tears, Bellows talked at length about the victims’ family members and they horror they endured because of Severance’s crimes.
“He condemned each of these family members to bear witness to a nightmare,” Bellows said. A few victims’ family members cried and hugged one another.
The outcome was not a surprise: The jurors who convicted Severance recommended the penalty in November.
Severance, 55, was convicted of murder in the February 2014 slaying of music teacher Ruthanne Lodato, the November 2013 shooting of regional transportation planner Ronald Kirby and the December 2003 killing of real estate agent Nancy Dunning. Prosecutors said bitterness over a child custody battle that he lost and a general hatred of Alexandria’s elite motivated him to shoot the victims — all apparently strangers to him — in daylight attacks at their homes.
[What Charles Severance wrote to a Washington Post reporter][What Charles Severance wrote to a Washington Post reporter]
At the trial, jurors learned that Severance was a peculiar man who sometimes seemed to battle psychological demons and other times seemed to lead a normal life. The son of a two-star Navy admiral, Severance lived in various places in his youth and enjoyed traveling, history and gaming. He attended three colleges, ultimately graduating with a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Virginia, and was briefly married. In recent years, he would go over to his parents’ house weekly to watch the TV show “Survivor.” Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter urged the judge to reject Severance’s purported mental health issues as a reason to possibly reduce his sentence, saying the same “anger and hatred and proclivity for violence” that fueled his crimes also spurs mass shootings.
But Severance acted unusually almost throughout his life. Family members said he was vigorously opposed to smoking, even confronting his parents’ guests about it when they came for dinner. When he campaigned for political office in Alexandria in 1996 and 2000, a part of his platform was to encourage “country dancing” in the school system. When he wrote to family members, the missives were often rambling and nonsensical. An expert testified he had a personality disorder with mixed paranoid and schizotypal features. He contrasted the good that was done by the victims with Severance’s rage, noting that Severance would, after the hearing, be transported to a maximum security prison and spend the rest of his life “wallowing in the anger and loathing that mark his time on earth.”
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. “Violence does not win,” Porter said. “In the end, flying in the face of the senseless violence [and] despair that has been exhibited in this case, it is an incontrovertible fact that love wins.”
Defense attorney Christopher Leibig said the trial showed Severance had significant, undiagnosed mental health problems and was not truly evil.
Family members of every victim, along with Severance’s parents, were in court for the hearing. Notably, so, too, was former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell, who graduated high school with Lodato’s husband, and Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. Two attorneys from his office assisted Porter and Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Lord in prosecuting the case.
Bellows did agree to give Severance a different lawyer for his appeal, noting that his attorneys had requested to be removed because communication between them and Severance had broken down. He appointed James Hundley to take over Severance’s representation after the sentencing.
Severance’s outbursts Thursday were not completely unexpected. At the trial, jurors learned that Severance was a peculiar man who sometimes seemed to battle psychological demons and other times seemed to lead a normal life. The son of a two-star Navy admiral, Severance lived in various places in his youth and enjoyed traveling, history and gaming. He attended three colleges, ultimately graduating with a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Virginia, and was briefly married. In recent years, he would go over to his parents’ house weekly to watch the TV show “Survivor.”
But Severance acted unusually almost throughout his life, including through the legal proceedings, when he frequently sparred with judges in court. Family members said Severance was vigorously opposed to smoking, even confronting his parents’ guests about it when they came for dinner. When he campaigned for political office in Alexandria in 1996 and 2000, a part of his platform was to encourage “country dancing” in the school system. When he wrote to family members, the missives were often rambling and nonsensical. An expert testified he had a personality disorder with mixed paranoid and schizotypal features.
After his conviction, Severance wrote to a Washington Post reporter, taking aim The Post, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, and the parents and boyfriend of Alison Parker, the Roanoke reporter shot to death on live television in August.