THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 11, 1994 TAG: 9407110012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK AND LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 198 lines
The man accused of being the worst mass killer in Virginia Beach history grew up hard, angry and entrapped by booze along with his alcoholic father, an Ohio auto worker.
Michael D. Clagett was allowed to get drunk at age 13, and later cultivated marijuana plants in the back yard of of his parents' home, according to his mother and court records. His father, James T. Clagett (pronounced CLAJ-ett), was an alcoholic who died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1977 at the age of 52. He worked long hours at a General Motors plant in Columbus, Ohio, and drank long and hard while at home in nearby Galloway, Ohio.
Court records in Norfolk portray the Clagett home as a classroom for alcoholics where James T. Clagett taught his son how to drink, more by example than by direct instruction. It was not so much a father-son relationship as a mentor-student relationship.
There wasn't much love lost between generations in the Clagett home, said Michael's mother, Iris M. Etter. Neither Michael nor his brother, Jim, got along with their father, she said.
``You don't get along with alcoholics,'' said Etter, who is 68, remarried and living in Galloway. ``Nobody got along with him.''
But James T. Clagett's legacy of alcohol abuse rebounded in a horrific way in Virginia Beach on June 30, Michael's 33rd birthday.
While celebrating, Clagett said, he frantically drank bourbon and Coca-Cola, and did cocaine, at a friend's house with his new girlfriend, Denise R. Holsinger.
Later that night, Clagett and Holsinger went to the Witchduck Inn. There, Clagett allegedly used a .357-caliber handgun to kill the bar's owner and three others.
In interviews after his arrest, Clagett said he committed the murders at the urging of Holsinger. Charged with four counts of capital murder, Clagett asked a judge if he could bypass a trial and go straight to the electric chair. Holsinger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
IRIS ETTER REMEMBERS the day in the mid-1970s when she found out that her teenager Michael was doing more than drinking alcohol at home.
``I found a bag that looked like parsley out in the yard. I thought it was parsley leaves. I had no idea it was drugs,'' she said. ``Then I found these gorgeous beautiful green plants in the yard. I thought `What kind of flowers did I plant here? They're so beautiful.' So, I got to telling the girls where I worked about these beautiful bushes. One girl said, `Iris, you just haven't been around drugs. Bring a little bit of the plant in and let me look at it.' So the next morning I took in one of the leaves and she said, `Oh, my goodness! Get home and tear those out. That's marijuana. You could be put in jail.' ''
Etter remembers other markers for trouble during Michael's childhood.
Her younger son grew up in the shadow of his older brother, Jim. Eventually, the two became polar opposites.
Jim worked hard, mowed lawns and saved his money, sometimes buying himself something special with his money. Jim also liked scouting, and he graduated from Cub Scouts and entered the Boy Scouts with enthusiasm.
Michael didn't like the Boy Scouts. Compared to Jim, he was lazy and disruptive. He began staying out late and going out with girls. Etter said Michael also started to steal some of the things that Jim had earned.
When Michael was 12 or 13, his mother took him to a counselor for staying out late and being defiant. That didn't work, she said, and her son never agreed to go back.
The older Michael got, the more unmanageable he became, his mother said.
According to court records in Norfolk, Michael was arrested at 13 and charged with reckless driving, driving without a license and leaving the scene of an accident. He was fined $25. The charge of driving without a license was dismissed.
During his teenage years, Michael Clagett told the court, he got drunk at least once a week. His father, he said, let him drink because ``he did not see anything wrong with it.''
Clagett never graduated from high school. He dropped out in the 10th grade, when his parents divorced. He later got his GED certificate.
Etter said that when Michael was 18 he left home and married ``a tramp'' against Etter's wishes. He stayed less than three years with his young wife and new baby.
Court records also show that Clagett was convicted three times of passing bad checks in Columbus in 1979 and 1980.
Michael, remembered Etter, was ``very, very easily led. Even when he was younger, his friends could lead him into things. He had to be like them. That was always the way it was with Michael. He had to follow. I understand that, but you can't blame someone else for what you do.''
FOR THREE YEARS, the U.S. Navy saved Michael Clagett. He joined up in 1979 in Columbus, did basic training in San Diego and was stationed for part of his hitch in Charleston, S.C., aboard the Mount Baker, an ammunition ship.
The Navy brought discipline into Clagett's life, possibly for the first time. He ``slowed down on his alcohol and marijuana consumption'' during these years, according to a report filed with the court. He also stayed out of trouble with the law.
But that changed in 1982, when he was transferred to Norfolk to serve aboard the carrier Eisenhower.
At that time, Clagett told a probation official he had decided he did not want to be in the Navy.
Clagett received four disciplinary actions - two captain's masts and two courts-martial - mostly because he had a habit of going away from his base without permission. He received a bad-conduct discharge on Dec. 11, 1984.
AFTER HIS RELEASE from the Navy in 1984, Clagett stayed in Hampton Roads and reverted to his old ways.
He smoked one to two marijuana cigarettes each day and visited bars about four times a week.
He couldn't or wouldn't hold a job. And he began getting into trouble again with law enforcement authorities.
In June of 1984 Clagett was convicted of drinking in public and fined $10. A month later he was charged with marijuana possession, and a month after that he was charged with driving under the influence, reckless driving and driving without a license.
By the end of 1984, Clagett had been charged with two felony counts of statutory burglary and numerous other offenses.
Clagett was given a three-year suspended sentence that was revoked in 1986 when he was found in possession of $18,000 worth of stolen property, including a car that he drove from Virginia to Florida. He was sentenced to five years each for possession of stolen property and grand larceny.
After Clagett's conviction in 1986, David A. Doll, a Norfolk probation officer, wrote that Clagett ``does not take the criminal justice system seriously, and it can be expected that he will continue to be involved in the system unless he makes major changes in his life.''
CLAGETT WAS RELEASED from the state prison system in 1988 and placed on parole supervision in Virginia Beach. A year later he was referred to a drug-treatment program after his urine screen tested positive for marijuana.
The drug counseling did not work. Two other times while on parole supervision, Clagett tested positive for marijuana use.
In July 1990 he was arrested for parole violation and held in the Virginia Beach jail.
It was while Clagett was living in a halfway house after his release from the Virginia Beach jail that he met a woman who would give him one of the most prolonged periods of peace in his troubled life.
Clagett later moved in with her and went to work as a house painter.
``He was a very good painter and had various jobs,'' said the woman, who asked not to be identified. He never held the jobs for long, she said, usually complaining that his employers were ``screwing him over.''
He even tried unsuccessfully to start his own painting company, the woman said. But Clagett, she said, often spent more than he earned, and he never worried about paying his bills.
``He never really seemed to have any ambition,'' she said. ``He used to tell me that he never expected to live beyond the age of 35 or so.''
Clagett also worked occasionally on scallop boats that would go out to sea for 17-day stretches. The life seemed to suit Clagett, who could put up with the work just long enough to get paid.
But the marijuana use continued, and so did the drinking. Clagett was ``hooked'' on marijuana, she said. The drinking was not steady, she said: Clagett would sometimes go weeks without a beer. But when he drank, he drank to get drunk, she said.
``From the first mouthful, he was trying to get drunk,'' she said.
And that is when he was troublesome, and dangerous, she said.
``He was one of those drunks who was mad at the world,'' she said.
Their relationship, she said, deteriorated within a year of their meeting. They stayed together, she said, because she could find no easy way of breaking it off.
Clagett, she said, could be charming in a superficial way, and had numerous friends who considered him laid back and mellow.
One of those friends was Holsinger. When Clagett began seeing her romantically, his former roommate said, the relationship ended. She demanded that he leave her house.
``He knew I was his best friend and when he needed help I would help him,'' she said. ``Then suddenly he didn't have a home anymore or a friend to fall back on.''
When she heard about what Clagett had done, she spent the day in a daze.
``I still can't believe he had that kind of violence in him,'' she said. ``He would never have done it alone.''
DURING A JAILHOUSE INTERVIEW, Clagett asked a reporter to tell his mother he's sorry for what he did.
She had a message him, too.
``Being sorry doesn't bring those people back, and he ought to know that,'' she said. ``I don't know what I'd say to him. I might say something that would hurt him worse than help him.''
On second thought, she did have one thing to tell him.
``Tell Michael that I love him but I do not love what he did.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Michael Clagett, 33, has admitted to killing four people in a
Virginia Beach bar June 30.
File photo by JOHN C. BELL
Police investigate the scene of the quadruple slayings at the
Witchduck Inn in Virginia Beach on June 30.
KEYWORDS: MURDER ROBBERY
by CNB