THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 24, 1995 TAG: 9510240294
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
In the final tally, convicted killer Michael Clagett will get what he wanted - death by execution for shooting four people to death in the Witchduck Inn last year.
But family members of the victims said Monday that justice was not done in the case prosecutors called ``the most violent'' in the history of Virginia Beach.
``We all believe that Denise Holsinger was the main person behind this,'' said the mother of one of the victims, Carolyn Cussins. ``It's hard for us to deal with the fact that she got life and he got death. Maybe it should have been reversed.''
Clagett and his attorneys have maintained throughout the trials of the two former lovers that Holsinger masterminded the June 1994 murders and robbery at the bar where she had worked.
She talked him into it, evidence showed, filling his mind with Bonnie and Clyde fantasies while they had sex and urging him to fire the shots in the blur of a two-day drug and alcohol binge.
Last week, Holsinger received five life sentences for her role. By Virginia law, she could not receive the death penalty because she did not pull the trigger.
On Monday, Judge Edward W. Hanson Jr. affirmed a jury's recommendation of five death penalties against Clagett, who confessed freely and expressed remorse and disgust that he could kill four people execution-style, including the tavern's owner, LamVan Son, one of his best friends.
In his first hearing, Clagett pleaded for the judge to forgo formal proceedings and sentence him to die. During his confession, Clagett cried nonstop for more than an hour. ``You can fry me,'' Clagett told detectives. ``I don't want the taxpayers supporting me. I did it. . . . And the worst thing was Lam was my buddy. . . . He was my buddy.''
During Monday's hearing, Clagett's attorney used that remorse to try to persuade Judge Hanson to disregard the jury's recommended death sentence.
``To die may be the easiest way out for Mr. Clagett,'' said public defender Peter Legler. ``To terminate his grief. To terminate his self-hatred. To terminate his guilt.''
``This man does not deserve to die,'' Legler said. ``A man with that much sorrow is a soul worth saving.''
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert Humphreys disagreed. ``He may have been encouraged, he may have planned it with someone else, but it was his finger on the trigger,'' Humphreys said.
By contrast to Holsinger, who wept and read a statement of apology Thursday, Clagett said nothing Monday, standing without expression as he was sentenced to die.
Afterward, Cussins - mother of slain handyman Wendel G. ``J.R.'' Parrish Jr. - said she doesn't believe in the death penalty, but is satisfied with the jury's decision.
``Life would have been more punishment,'' she said. ``I truly feel he is remorseful, but he has to pay. He gets to choose how he dies,'' by electrocution or lethal injection. ``My son didn't have that choice.''
Some family members expressed anger at how long Clagett's trial took and questioned why the law allowed Holsinger to live.
``If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword, that's been the law for 2,000 years,'' said Jim Garcia, relative of slain patron Abdelaziz Gren. ``The healing process cannot begin until after the punishment is done. She will never be paroled.''
Garcia has launched a one-man lobbying movement against the so-called ``trigger law'' that let Holsinger escape the death penalty, he said. He has written letters and placed calls to influential lawmakers, he said.
Kevin Rounds, husband of murdered bartender Karen S. Rounds, was quiet Monday. He has said in the past that his wife will not rest until Clagett is executed.
For Lanna Son, whose husband owned the Witchduck Inn and whose son was spared as he slept in a back office, the verdicts and sentences seemed to have little impact.
``I still don't know how I feel,'' she said. ``Me and my son are home alone. We don't have my husband. He doesn't have a father. I still miss my husband every day. And when I do, I remember Michael and Denise. Every day, when I go to the grave, I have to drive by the bar. And when I'm in the bar, every day I remember how he was beside me every single hour as we worked together. I remember every time.'' ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON
The Virginian-Pilot
Kevin Rounds, left, was quiet Monday. But he has said that his wife
Karen, who was killed by Michael Clagett, will not rest until
Clagett is executed.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SENTENCING DEATH PENALTY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
LETHAL INJECTION by CNB