DATE: Wednesday, July 30, 1997              TAG: 9707300515

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   81 lines

EX-DEPUTY GETS 3 LIFE SENTENCES FOR MURDERS PROSECUTION DIDN'T SEEK DEATH PENALTY

In a murder case that could have resulted in the death penalty, a judge on Tuesday sentenced a former sheriff's deputy to three life terms for the slaying of his ex-wife and her boyfriend last September.

Family members of the victims gasped and wept openly as Circuit Judge Thomas S. Shadrick accepted a plea agreement that allowed 42-year-old Dana T. Driscoll to spend the rest of his life behind bars instead of going to trial and facing the death penalty.

Shadrick told the grieving relatives that ``my heart goes out to you, your feelings are normal, . . . but it is the responsibility of the court to sentence appropriately in a case, without emotion or passion.''

Driscoll pleaded guilty in May to the shotgun murders of his ex-wife, Susan Driscoll, 39, and Walter D. Cartwright Jr., 49, on Sept. 20. Driscoll held his wife, who had been hog-tied, captive for several hours in the upstairs bedroom of her College Park townhouse before shooting her as a police SWAT team hovered outside the building.

On Tuesday, he received one life sentence each for capital murder, first-degree murder and use of a sawed-off shotgun. He also was sentenced to eight years in prison for two weapons violations.

All are the maximum penalties for the crimes, and under current Virginia law, there is no parole for those convicted of violent felonies.

But the penalty was not stiff enough to please survivors of the victims, especially those related to Cartwright.

Members of Cartwright's family refused to comment Tuesday on the sentence, but in May they openly criticized the plea agreement.

``The whole family feels the same as I do. We wanted the death penalty and nothing short of it,'' said Kenneth Harris, Cartwright's foster brother, in May.

Calling the plea agreement ``my decision and no one else's,'' Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Robert J. Humphreys defended Driscoll's sentence on Tuesday in open court.

Humphreys said that Virginia law requires capital murder to carry a sentence of life in prison unless ``future dangerousness'' or ``vileness'' can be shown.

Future dangerousness, Humphreys said, was never an issue with Driscoll, the father of four children who served honorably in the military and with the Virginia Beach Sheriff's Department.

The possibility that Driscoll tortured his wife before killing her was investigated, Humphreys said, as a way to show ``vileness'' in the slaying of Susan Driscoll. A stun gun was found in the bedroom where Susan Driscoll was murdered, and investigators initially thought that she had been shot with it before she died.

But Humphreys said ``there was no evidence to support that the stun gun had been applied to her person during her captivity by the defendant.''

And when his office sent the stun gun to a laboratory for testing, the results showed that the gun's battery was fully charged, indicating that the gun had likely never been fired.

With these facts in the case, Humphreys said, a death penalty sentence would probably not stand up on appeal and would be ``very likely to come back for, at the minimum, a re-sentencing.''

Humphreys assured the court and those in the audience that his office does not shy away from pursuing death as a penalty by citing the recent execution of Joseph O'Dell, who was convicted of rape and murder in Virginia Beach.

Humphreys also cited at least two other defendants who currently are on death row as proof that his office seeks the ultimate penalty when appropriate.

Driscoll shot both victims during a tense, four-hour standoff with police at his wife's townhouse on Riviera Drive. He first shot Cartwright by firing through the townhouse door. He then shot Cartwright a second time while he attempted to pull himself to safety along the floor.

Driscoll then hunted for his wife, eventually finding her hiding in an upstairs bedroom. He tied her with plastic handcuffs and electrical cord and held her hostage for about three hours.

Driscoll, who had four children with Susan Driscoll, addressed the court before he was sentenced.

``I'm guilty of the crime,'' Driscoll said. ``And I am sorry for that. I can't change that. But I did not torture anybody.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Dana Driscoll KEYWORDS: MURDER SENTENCING

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