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Police looking into whether man arrested in W.Va. may be tied to Alexandria killings Man arrested in W.Va. identified as ‘person of interest’ in Alexandria killings
(about 3 hours later)
Alexandria officials said Friday they are looking into the possibility that a man arrested in West Virginia is connected to three high-profile slayings in the city, but a police spokeswoman said detectives are “nowhere close” to charging the man. A former Alexandria man with a felony record and a history of odd, seemingly confused behavior has emerged as a “person of interest” in three high-profile slayings in the city, Alexandria’s mayor said Friday, but a police spokeswoman cautioned that investigators were “nowhere close to charging anyone with murder.”
Several law enforcement agencies said police in Alexandria and Loudoun County issued a lookout earlier this week for Charles Severance, 53, who has extensive ties to Alexandria. The lookout went to dozens of police departments, but did not mention the slayings in the city. Charles Severance, 53, who campaigned for political office in Alexandria in 1996 and 2000 — listing his occupation in a voter guide as “Expert witness, principal investigator, mentaldisorder.com” — was arrested Thursday in Wheeling, W.Va., on a charge unrelated to the three killings.
He was arrested in Wheeling on Thursday. Meanwhile, in Alexandria — where political figures remembered Severance for his eccentric campaigns, his focus on peculiar issues and his strange attire — authorities said they are trying to determine whether he is linked to three fatal shootings that have gripped the city with fear that a serial killer might be at work.
Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille (D) on Friday called Severance a “person of interest’’ but said, as of mid-afternoon, that Alexandria police hadn’t yet spoken with Severance. Police have said that markings on bullet fragments from the February slaying of music teacher Ruthanne Lodato, the 2003 killing of real estate agent Nancy Dunning and the November slaying of regional transportation planner Ronald Kirby were so similar that detectives were treating the cases as a “series” of possibly related crimes.
Crystal Nosal, an Alexandria police spokeswoman, confirmed the man had been arrested on a charge unrelated to the series of slayings but cautioned police “are nowhere close to charging anyone with murder.” “Mr. Severance’s name was brought to the attention of [Alexandria police] during the routine analysis of crime tips,” the department said in a statement Friday.
“We’re investigating every tip, so I would say of course we’ll investigate the possibility that this is connected,” Nosal said. The statement added: “Detectives continue to follow up on the crime tip information. However, it is premature to name him as the only possible suspect.”
Wheeling, W.Va. City Police Detective Sgt. Gregg McKenzie said the FBI contacted his agency about 11:45 a.m. Thursday, asking officers to look for a man who was wanted on a warrant in Loudoun County. The warrant, he said, listed the charge — felon in possession of a firearm — and provided no other details. Officers were given a description of Severance and his car and were told he might be staying at the Knights Inn on Main Street, McKenzie said. Severance is “one of those guys who can find more conspiracies and more government problems than anybody,” said lawyer G.V. McKinley of Cumberland, Md., who has represented him in the past. But McKinley added: “I don’t know him to have a mean bone in his body. He could be angry. I didn’t find him to be mean.” He said Severance suffered from some psychiatric problems, but he offered no details.
McKenzie said officers found the car, which he declined to describe, in the Knights Inn parking lot, but Severance was not at the hotel. He said they found him soon after inside the Ohio County Public Library, several blocks away, and took him into custody. “I would be totally floored if he is involved in something like that,” McKinley said, referring to the Alexandria killings.
McKenzie said officers considered Severance “armed and dangerous,” but only because they would consider any possible felon in possession of a firearm as such. He said they arrested him, though, without any resistance, and took him to the West Virginia Northern Regional Jail, where he was being held Friday on a $100,000 cash bond. He declined to say what Severance was doing at the library when he was arrested. Severance has been living in Loudoun County, and a neighbor, John Beltrane, said he saw authorities at Severance’s home for nearly six hours Wednesday night. He said it appeared that they were “combing through everything in the house” as well as questioning the woman who lived with Severance.
McKenzie said Severance was expected to appear Monday for an extradition hearing in Ohio County Circuit Court. He said his officers did not know of the incidents in Alexandria when they arrested Severance, who did not seem to have any connections to Wheeling and was not suspected in any crimes there. “He kept to himself a lot,” Beltrane said of Severance. “He was a little monotone, but nothing that struck me as super odd.”
“This is new to us,” McKenzie said. “[The] only reason we were looking for him today, or yesterday, is because we got information that Loudoun County had a warrant and they believed he was in our area.” Authorities appear to have acted with some urgency this week to ensure that Severance was taken into custody while they investigate whether he might be connected to the Alexandria killings.
A spokeswoman for the Loudoun County sheriff’s office said she could not provide details of the warrant because Severance had not yet appeared in court there. In 2005, Severance pleaded guilty to a felony gun-possession charge in Rockingham County, Va., and was placed on probation. More recently, Loudoun police obtained a warrant for his arrest, charging him with possessing a gun, which is a crime for a person who has a felony conviction.
The slayings have gripped Alexandria with fear of a possible serial killer. Alexandria Police have said in recent weeks that the markings on bullet fragments from the February slaying of music teacher Ruthanne Lodato, the 2003 slaying of real estate agent Nancy Dunning and the November killing of regional transportation planner Ronald Kirby were so alike that detectives were treating the cases as a “series of crimes.” How long that warrant had been on file, unserved, is not clear. But after Severance emerged as a person of interest in the Alexandria killings, investigators in the homicide cases moved to serve the Loudoun warrant, according to the Alexandria police statement.
Craig Fifer, an Alexandria city spokesman, said the man arrested in Wheeling bore an “obvious physical resemblance” to the police sketch of the suspect in the Lodato killing, and “a lot of people are asking if there’s a connection and we’re looking into that.” Several
“We’re looking at him to see if there’s any possible connection with any cases here . . .but he has not been charged in connection to those cases,” Fifer said.
Ann Haynes, Ron Kirby’s widow, said a detective called her Friday afternoon and told her “as far as he’s concerned, no one has been connected in Ron Kirby’s death, and that’s all I wanted to hear.” law enforcement agencies said police in Alexandria and Loudoun issued a lookout for Severance this week, without mentioning the homicides.
“I don’t know Charles Severance, and I don’t know anything about him, and I understand there’s all kinds of rumors and stuff going around,” she said. “They haven’t proved anything yet.” Detective Sgt. Gregg McKenzie of the Wheeling police said the FBI contacted his department about 11:45 a.m. Thursday, asking officers to look for a man who was wanted in Loudoun on a charge of possessing a gun after a felony conviction.
Haynes said she noted the similarities between Severance and police’s sketch, but she remained skeptical, even Friday, that Kirby’s killing was even connected to the others. She noted the bullet markings were not microscopically identical, and she and her husband had no connections she knew of to any of the other victims or their families. Officers were given a description of Severance and his car and were told that he might be staying at the Knights Inn in Wheeling, McKenzie said. That could indicate that federal officials had been monitoring Severance.
Still, she said the detective told her that they were trying to analyze DNA samples — particularly those from the doorknob of her home — and if those matched Severance, she might be convinced. On Thursday, Wheeling police arrested him in connection with the Loudoun case as he sat at a public computer in the Ohio County Public Library, according to the library director, Dottie Thomas. He was arrested quietly, Thomas said. Police said he was unarmed when he was taken into custody, and workers at the hotel where he stayed said authorities did not find a gun in his room.
“If his DNA shows up on the doorknob, then well have the evidence, but so far, they haven’t finished that, so it’s not clear what they have.” Severance apparently had been in that West Virginia city for only a day, having checked into his hotel March 12, according to Anand Patel, manager of Knights Inn.
Severance ran for mayor of Alexandria in 2000 and lost. In the 2000 Washington Post voter’s guide, Severance listed his occupation as “Expert witness, principal investigator, mentaldisorder.com.” Patel said Severance — wearing a black hat and scarf — paid for his room with a credit card and left his car in the hotel lot. He asked for directions to Revolutionary War sites and took some tour brochures from the hotel lobby. On Thursday, after checking out of the hotel, he asked for directions to the library, saying he wanted to do research, Patel said. Police arrived at the hotel about 20 minutes later.
His platform involved ending a “plague of child and adolescent psychiatry” that was “endeavoring to establish itself in Alexandria for four more years and by the appropriations they expect and will probably receive may prove dangerous to our reverent youth if not timely suppressed.” At the library, he spent just under two hours online before local police and FBI agents arrived to arrest him, Thomas said. She said an FBI agent mentioned an arrest warrant “for a weapons charge and that there was a case in Alexandria.”
Kerry Donley, former mayor and current city council member who was Severance’s opponent in the 2000 mayoral race described him as an “odd fellow” who focused his campaign around “juvenile mental health services and psychotropic drugs.” He said Severance wire a black hat, black sunglasses, black clothes and black gloves. Left on the computer table after the arrest, Thomas said, were Severance’s big black fedora and large scarf. She said authorities returned to the library and took the hat, the scarf and the computer that Severance had been using.
Euille said he remembers Severance from his campaigns for mayor in the 1990s and 2000, but hadn’t seen him since 2000 or 2001. McKenzie, of the Wheeling police, said Severance is scheduled to appear for an extradition hearing Monday, during which prosecutors will seek to have him sent to Loudoun to face the gun-possession charge. Meanwhile, he is being held in a West Virginia jail in lieu of $100,000 bond.
“He dressed strangely,” Euille said. “On warm summer nights when we were all in shirt sleeves, he would wear long black leather coats and gloves. . .all his answers to any question were ‘we need to legalize marijuana’ and answers like that.” Severance was arrested several times in Western Maryland in the early 2000s on charges of assault and indecent exposure but was not prosecuted, according to court records.
Euille said that when he saw the police-issued sketch several weeks ago, he did not think of Severance, but thought “this is someone I know, someone I’ve seen before. A lot of people said that too, but I couldn’t really finger anyone in particular.” As for the Alexandria killings, “we’re investigating every tip,” police spokesman Crystal Nosal said. But she said investigators “are nowhere close” to filing charges.
Severance was questioned by D.C. police on March 7, after he showed up at the Russian Embassy and asked for asylum, according to a police report obtained by the Washington Post. Alexandria City Council member Kerry Donley (D), a former mayor, who defeated Severance in the 2000 race, recalled him as an “odd fellow” who focused his campaign around “juvenile mental health services and psychotropic drugs.” He said Severance usually wore a black hat, black sunglasses, black clothes and black gloves.
The incident occurred about 1:25 p.m. in front of the embassy’s main gate in the 2600 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW. D.C. police and U.S. Secret Service agents responded “to investigate a the report of an unwanted guest,” the report says. Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille (D) recalled Severance’s fixation on esoteric issues. He also said, “On warm summer night, when we were all in shirt sleeves, he would wear long black leather coats and gloves.”
Severance “indicated that he was attempting to enter the embassy because he wanted to request asylum,” the report says. “The subject was sent on his way and all units cleared.” A spokesman for the city, Craig Fifer, said Severance bears an “obvious physical resemblance” to a police sketch of a possible suspect in the Lodato killing. He said that “a lot of people are asking if there’s a connection, and we’re looking into that.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service declined to comment. A man who answered the phone at the Russian Embassy said only that he man was wearing a large hat. He said the man did not get further than the public sidewalk. He said the man did not indicate why he wanted asylum. Euille said that when he saw the police-issued sketch several weeks ago, Severance did not come to mind. But Euille said he thought: “This is someone I know, someone I’ve seen before. A lot of people said that, too. But I couldn’t really finger anyone in particular.”
The police report lists Severance’s address as on Gala Circle in Ashburn, Va., and says his occupation is an engineer. Severance was not arrested and no charges were filed. Severance, who has an bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, campaigned for Alexandria mayor in 2000 on a platform opposing a “plague of child and adolescent psychiatry.” He said that “plague” was “endeavoring to establish itself in Alexandria for four more years and by the appropriations they expect and will probably receive may prove dangerous to our reverent youth if not timely suppressed.”
In 2003, Severance was charged with second-degree assault and a fourth-degree sex offense in Allegheny County, in Western Maryland. At the time, court documents listed his address as being in Cumberland. Prosecutors put the case on the inactive docket and didn’t pursue the case, according to online court records. On March 7, Severance briefly came to the attention of authorities in the District in another instance of seemingly bizarre behavior.
In 2004, Severance was charged with two counts of indecent exposure and two counts of disorderly conduct, also in Allegheny County. Prosecutors did not pursue that case either, the court records show. According to a police report, he was questioned by police and U.S. Secret Service officers after he showed up at the Russian Embassy and “indicated that he was attempting to enter the embassy because he wanted to request asylum.” A federal law enforcement official said Severance tried to scale the fence.
Severance’s attorney at the time, G. V. McKinley, of Cumberland, said he still gets post cards from his old client who enjoys traveling, particularly to Arizona and California. “The subject was sent on his way and all units cleared,” the police report said. A man who answered the phone at the Russian Embassy on Friday said only that the man had been wearing a large hat.
“He did have his idiosyncrasies, but nothing I would consider crazy,” McKinley said. “He is a good-hearted guy.” Anne Haynes, Ronald Kirby’s widow, said a detective told her Friday that “as far as he’s concerned, no one has been connected in Ron Kirby’s death.”
McKinley said “there was nothing about Charles that would stand out in any way,” and he added he was particularly fond of Northern Virginia. He said that at one point he suffered from some psychiatric problems, but he didn’t have any more details. She said: “I don’t know Charles Severance, and I don’t know anything about him, and I understand there’s all kinds of rumors and stuff going around.”
“I would be totally floored if he is involved in something like that,” McKinley said when told of the killings in Alexandria At one point, frustrated by Virginia’s legal system, he invented a board game to showcase what it was like to go through, and even sent off to Milton Bradley and tried to get it patented. Eugene Robert Giammittorio Sr., a retired Alexandria General District Court judge and Ruthanne Lodato’s brother, said he saw the news of a person of interest in his sister’s death on TV, and he is hopeful there will be a break in the case.
“He has a great mind,” McKinley said. But when told of the incident at the Russian Embassy, the attorney said, “If he’s doing stuff like that, he’s changed. That’s a much different guy than he was.” “I’m excited,” Giammittorio said.
McKinley wouldn’t comment on the 2003 and 2004 criminal cases until he had a chance to review the files. Giammittorio said that he did not recognize Severance by name or by face, but he was particularly interested in a report about a gun-possession case that was said to involve Severance in the mid-1990s. Giammittorio said that at that time, he was one of two judges handling such cases. He said that after hearing the news Friday, he called a clerk who used to work for him and asked her to pull whatever information was available on the case — hoping to determine whether he was the judge — but that the clerk told him the court does not store files of that age.
Mary Pat Flaherty, Dan Morse, Patricia Sullivan, Justin Jouvenal, Jennifer Jenkins and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report. Liz Dunning, daughter of Nancy Dunning, said police had not contacted her about Severance. She said she did not know him and was not aware of any connection between Severance and her mother. And “the pain of not knowing is great.”
Paul Duggan, Dan Morse, Susan Svrluga, Patrick Svitek, Patricia Sullivan, Justin Jouvenal, Carol D. Leonnig, Jennifer Jenkins and Rachel Weiner contributed to this report.
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