The VLW Blog

A jury room dispute is now public following a closely watched Shenandoah County murder trial.
Members of the jury recommended on Thursday that Jody Lynn Bradley serve nine years in prison for the second-degree murder of Brendon Manning Barker, a 16-year-old boy who was shot while visiting Bradley’s daughter.
Some jurors are now arguing that his sentence [...]

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A Chesapeake judge is considering a mistrial motion in a murder case after a juror failed to disclose her history as a crime victim.
James Boughton Jr. was previously found guilty for shooting a Mormon missionary to death. This past Friday, defense attorney Andrew Sacks told Chesapeake Circuit Judge Randy Smith that a woman known as [...]

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The jury deadlocked in an Albemarle County trial involving a killing 21 years ago.
In 1988, Roger Lee Shifflett was robbed and shot to death at the convenience store he owned and operated, reports The Daily Progress. Less than a month after the shooting, defendant Alvin Lee Morris divorced his own wife, married Shifflett’s widow and helped [...]

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A Woodbridge man is now fit to be tried for murder, after being found incompetent to stand trial in March.
Keith Baskerville, charged in the abduction and death of an Alexandria woman, completed treatment last month at a state mental hospital and was sent to the Prince William-Manassas Regional Jail after his discharge, reports the News [...]

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Sentencing instructions for a man facing the death penalty had the attention of the Supreme Court of Virginia yesterday.
According to the Associated Press, the jury that convicted Alfredo R. Prieto of the 1988 slayings of a young couple was allegedly given unconstitutional verdict forms.
Attorney Michael A. Siem argued that the forms failed to provide an option [...]

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Despite lingering mysteries, the Virginia State Police will close the books on its investigation of police work in a 1967 double killing in Staunton.
According to The News Virginian, concerns about lead investigator Davie Bocock’s handling of the case could not be resolved due to a “significant lapse of time.”
Although Sharron Diane Crawford Smith, now deceased, [...]

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