THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060373
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
Michael Claggett sits alone in a white paper gown beneath a glaring white light in the city jail, on suicide watch after confessing to the city's worst mass murder.
His sleep is interrupted, he says, by the image of his victims' blood pooling at his feet.
Tuesday, in his first court appearance since he was charged with four counts of capital murder for Thursday's slayings at the Witchduck Inn, Claggett asked a judge to let him bypass the trial and go directly to the electric chair.
``Can we skip the preliminaries and go straight to sentencing?'' he asked.
Later, in an interview, Claggett, 33, elaborated. ``It's just wasting the taxpayers' money. I may have been drunk and smoking, but I know that I did it. Just go ahead and electrocute me.''
An occasionally wild-eyed Claggett talked at length about the slayings. His eyes teared up as he wrestled with how he could have killed four people, two of them good friends, for money.
Two days of partying ended when he stuck a .357 Magnum into his pants under his shirt, and went into the Witchduck Inn, barely able to walk after drinking nearly a dozen Jim Beam and Cokes.
When the violence was over, four people were dead: bar owner LamVan Son, 41; tavern handyman Wendel G. ``J.R.'' Parrish Jr., 32; bartender Karen S. Rounds, 31; and patron Abdelaziz Gren, 34.
``I knew Lam's wife and child,'' Claggett said during the hourlong interview. ``That's what's driving me crazy. I'm just not that type of person. And there's nothing I can do to bring them back. I've seen blood on myself. .
Claggett blames his lover, Denise R. Holsinger, whom he describes as ``evil.'' Just before the shootings, she kept telling him to ``do them, do them,'' he said. ``She said shewas in my blood and I'd never get rid of her.''
An hour before the massacre, Holsinger and Claggett planned the robbery while making love on the couch in his condo, Claggett said. Holsinger convinced Claggett they could be the next Bonnie and Clyde, he said.
Holsinger, 29, a former bartender at the Witchduck Inn, has denied that she was involved in the slayings. She told police she saw Claggett shoot Parrish, then left the tavern. Tuesday, four counts of capital murder against Holsinger were reduced to first-degree murder.
Claggett said Holsinger went with him into the bar and was standing between Gren and Parrish. One bought her a beer, and the other gave her money to play the jukebox.
When one of the men went to the bathroom, Holsinger whispered, ``Do it,'' Claggett said.
``I told Karen to lay on the ground. I told Aziz and J.R. to lie on the ground,'' Claggett said. ``J.R. said, `Shoot me,' so I shot him in the forehead.
``It was like a dream, and then I saw all that blood. I'd never seen anything like that. They all kept their heads down on the floor. I was staring at the blood. I came so close to getting sick 'cause I'd never seen that much blood. I couldn't believe it. My ears were ringing. It was like I was in the Twilight Zone. . . . They didn't deserve that. Nobody does.''
In court Tuesday, Claggett was unkempt in his orange jumpsuit, his shoulder-length mane of hair disheveled. He said he has not been allowed to take a shower or brush his teeth since his arrest late Friday night.
On Wednesday, the day before the slayings, Claggett said, he awoke at 7 a.m. and began doing cocaine at about 1 p.m. to celebrate his 33rd birthday the next day. He partied through the night, doing the last of his stash about 6 a.m. Thursday.
At about 1 p.m. Thursday, Holsinger came to his condo with a birthday card, wanting to make up after a fight the two had a few days before, Claggett said. The two began drinking cream ale, vodka screwdrivers and bourbon and Cokes.
They went to a friend's house, a country bar and back to the condo where Claggett lived, where they planned the robbery while making love, he said.
Immediately after the slayings, Claggett and Holsinger drove to the Outer Banks. As they drove, ``she took her shirt, wiped down the shells and threw them out the window,'' Claggett said. ``Then she wiped down the gun.''
They checked into a Holiday Inn, using money from the robbery to pay for a room. Holsinger slept for a few hours. Then Claggett woke her, and they drove back to Virginia Beach, where they watched news of the slayings at 5:30 a.m. Friday.
At about 10:30 a.m., Claggett went to the tavern, where he told a detective he was a friend of Son's and had often helped him close up.
By Friday afternoon, Claggett and Holsinger were drinking again, this time at Miss Kitty's Village Inn, where they joined friends in mourning the victims, Claggett said.
``All these people were crying. I actually cried,'' Claggett said. ``Holsinger told me she was getting to believe she didn't do it. I had to get away from her.''
As he left, a friend offered him a bourbon and Coke and some pot. Exhausted, Claggett finally fell asleep in the bushes a few blocks from the Witchduck Inn. Police found him there Friday night at 11:30 p.m.
Claggett said he came to Virginia Beach in 1980 from Columbus, Ohio. He finished the 11th grade and got his GED certificate. His father, a plant worker at General Motors, died when Claggett was about 5.
Since 1980, Claggett has worked as a carpenter and a deckhand on scallop boats out of Seaford, near Newport News.
He spoke lovingly of his mother, who is 66. He asked that someone tell her that he's been arrested. ``You can tell her I'm sorry,'' he said.
Of his victims' families, he said: ``I wish I could get hold of Gov. Allen and get it over with. I don't want these people's families to suffer.''
And he spoke of Son's 4-year-old child, Joshua, who slept on a cot in an office in the back of the bar during the killings.
Holsinger ``had the money in her hand,'' Claggett said. ``She walked by and said, `Do them all.' She walked out and pointed at little Josh. I couldn't do that. I couldn't kill that little boy.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
Michael Claggett, in Virginia Beach jail, says he has visions of his
victims' blood. He wants to skip trial and go straight to
sentencing.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING ROBBERIES ARREST
CONFESSION by CNB