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CbabyRKO

Trumperdink Mussolini

The man accused of fatally shooting three prominent Alexandria residents over the past decade in brazen daylight attacks at their homes wrote in a document, “Knock. Talk. Enter. Kill. Exit. Murder” — an apparently perverted version of a biblical parable that prosecutors argued Thursday seems to describe his crimes to a T.

Urging a judge to make Charles Severance, 54, face just one trial for all the killings, Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter argued that the eccentric onetime politico’s writings outlined an undeniable connection between the crimes. Porter argued that Severance was upset at a child-custody decision that went against him in the early 2000s and that his anger drove him to kill.

In one document, Porter said, Severance wrote: “The last scream of a victim echoes to eternity.” In another, he wrote: “Murder on my mind, and my mind on murder.”

Severance’s court appearance in Alexandria Circuit Court was perhaps his most significant to date, though it will also be his last. Judge Jane Marum Roush granted his attorneys’ motion to move proceedings to Fairfax County, saying the fear the killings generated gave her concern about seating an impartial jury.

For his part, Severance interrupted the proceedings frequently, arguing that he did not want the venue changed, quizzing Roush on “irrevocable power of attorney” and asking to be called “accused” rather than “defendant.” Roush twice chastised him as “out of line,” but Severance seemed determined to press his case.

At one point, as attorneys discussed his holding up his middle finger at a previous hearing, Severance held it up again and said: “That’s West Virginia. That’s not an obscene gesture.”

Severance is accused of murder in the February 2014 slaying of music teacher Ruthanne Lodato, 59; the November 2013 shooting of regional transportation planner Ronald Kirby, 69; and the December 2003 killing of real estate agent Nancy Dunning, 56. The hearing on Thursday was to discuss a variety of motions in the case, including Severance’s attorneys’ bid to separate the proceedings related to Dunning and to move the trial out of Alexandria.

Defense attorneys dropped their motion, at least for now, to have the case dismissed. And while Roush agreed to change the venue over the prosecutors’ objection, defense attorney Chris Leibig said he would have preferred the trial be moved even farther away.


Severance said he wanted to be tried in the place where he was accused, and after Roush issued her ruling, he said aloud, “No self-respecting court would accept a bomb out of the mouth of the Alexandria enforcement class.”

John Kelly, a Lodato neighbor who has conferred with the families of the victims, said they “respect the judge’s decision” on moving the proceedings.

[...]

Roush did not immediately rule on defense attorneys’ request to separate the Dunning slaying from the other two cases. Severance defense attorney Megan Thomas had argued that that killing was unconnected to the other two and was “thrown onto” Kirby’s and Lodato’s slayings “because it makes the commonwealth’s case stronger.”

Porter countered that the cases were uncommon crimes, as evidenced by the type of gun and ammunition used and Severance’s writings about his motivations. Perhaps the most notable among those was one he titled “Parable of the Knocker,” which prosecutors say he based on the biblical “Parable of the Midnight Knocker.”

Porter also laid out in greater detail than before some of the ballistics evidence investigators have gathered against Severance and why they say he might have gone many years without killing anyone in Alexandria. Porter said while three different guns were used, they were all the same type, and prosecutors had evidence that Severance possessed three guns of such a variety around the time of all three killings. Porter said the ammunition, too, was distinctive and seemed to link Severance to the crimes.

Gun experts, Porter said, would testify that the killings were the only ones in which they had seen the type of ammunition used, and Severance wrote of his fascination with that ammunition specifically.

Porter said Severance lost his right to own a gun after he was charged — and later convicted — of a weapons violation in 2004. After that, Porter said, Severance traveled around the country for several years, staying on couches, camping and thinking about getting a gun.


Porter said Severance once wrote, apparently of that time period, “I have been nudging and trolling for over a decade and nobody has noticed.”

Defense attorneys argued Thursday that they dispute prosecutors’ characterization of Severance’s motivations; Leibig said the case was, in some ways, “strained.” They also argued that the ammunition used in the killings was common and could be purchased online.

Severance’s family declined to comment after the hearing,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...hpModule_13097a0c-868e-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394
 
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Yeah, uh huh. Let THAT fuggin' face "knock" at my door. Hell, I'd open it just to slam it back in his face before he ever got a shot off. I'm nice, but I ain't *that* friggin' nice, lol.

Looks like he's tryin' to snork out a hocker (or hock out a loogie?) :hilarious:
 
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This is another cautionary tale for those who don't use the spyhole in their door before opening it.

I mean, really, if you took a peep through the fisheye glass and saw that fellow, would you open up for a chat?
People may have looked through the peephole and saw someone normal looking.
He may not have looked like the photo when he committed the murders. His declining looks may be due to mental deterioration.
 
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People may have looked through the peephole and saw someone normal looking.
He may not have looked like the photo when he committed the murders. His declining looks may be due to mental deterioration.

I agree. He's got "Manson crazy" written all over his face (aging and somewhat schizophrenic).


Edit: I've got it! I knew I'd seen that face before. That's the "Don't f**k with me, I've got jock itch from the jail undies" face! :hilarious:
 
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[
A jury convicted a man of murder Monday, finding that he fatally shot three prominent Alexandria residents in their homes over the course of a decade as part of a longstanding grudge against the northern Virginia city.

Charles Severance, 55, of Ashburn, was charged in the deaths of Nancy Dunning, wife of then-Sheriff James Dunning, in 2003; transportation planner Ron Kirby in 2013; and music teacher Ruthanne Lodato last year.

Severance is a former Alexandria resident and fringe candidate for political office with a history of erratic behavior. On Monday, Severance, in a wheelchair with a bad ankle, stared straight ahead as verdict was read, as he did for much of the trial.
[...]
Prosecutors say he wanted revenge against what he perceived as the city’s elite after losing a child-custody case there. Defense lawyers argued that authorities jumped to conclusions about Severance because of his mental illness and violence-tinged writings.

Monday’s verdict came after about two full days of deliberations, about 12 hours in total.

The conviction closed a chapter on a series of killings that frightened and flummoxed Alexandria residents. The death of Nancy Dunning went unsolved for more than a decade, frustrating police. For years, James Dunning was suspected but never charged. He died in 2012 with a cloud of suspicion still hanging over him.

Prosecutors obtained the conviction against Severance without forensic evidence linking him to the crime, but with what Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter called a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Much of it came from Severance’s own hand, in the form of thousands of pages of violent journal writings justifying murder as revenge for the loss of his son, Levite. An Alexandria judge denied Severance custody of the child when the boy was a baby, and witnesses testified that Severance seethed about the case for more than a decade.

In one passage, titled “Parable of the Knocker,” Severance seemed to describe exactly the conduct in the killings, in which the three victims were shot in their homes in broad daylight: “Knock and the door will open. Knock. Talk. Enter. Kill. Exit. Murder. Wisdom.” In another passage, he wrote, “Received no satisfaction after revenge killing.”

When Alexandria detectives first tried to question Severance about the killings in March 2014, he went to the Russian Embassy seeking asylum, saying he was being persecuted by the city of Alexandria.

An eyewitness and shooting survivor testified that she recognized Severance as her attacker. Dorcas Franko, a caregiver in the Lodato home, was shot in the arm. Before the trial, she had never definitively identified Severance as her attacker. At the trial, she positively identified him after being pressed on the issue under cross-examination from defense attorneys.

Defense lawyers argued that witnesses tweaked their stories at trial to fit the narrative crafted by prosecutors. They presented testimony that Severance had suffered from paranoia and had been diagnosed in the past as schizophrenic. But they never tried to put on an insanity defense. Instead, they argued that Severance’s mental illness helped explain the nature of his writings and his effort to seek asylum.
/QUOTE]
http://m.nydailynews.com/news/crime...ring-3-alexandria-residents-article-1.2420676
 
Our storm door is always locked for extra protection/time, and we never open the door unless we know who it is. You just can't take a chance now. I don't care how nice or safe your neighborhood is either.
 
May 23, 2017
@Satanica
Charles Severance, convicted in 2015 of murder in the killings of three people in Alexandria, Va., has lost an appeal in state court.

Lawyers for Severance had argued that there were flaws in both his trial and sentencing in the slayings of Nancy Dunning in 2003, Ronald Kirby in 2013 and Ruthanne Lodato in 2014. A three-judge panel of the Virginia Court of Appeals disagreed.

Dunning was killed a decade before the other two victims, and no eyewitness connected Severance to the scene of her death. Severance’s lawyers say that case should have been tried separately from the other two.

However, the three judges ruled that “the crimes were sufficiently similar and idiosyncratic to establish an inference that the same person committed all three murders.”

The gun and bullets used were unusual, and all three crimes happened in safe neighborhoods in the middle of the day. All three victims were killed in their homes, and nothing was stolen.

Overall, the judges found there was enough evidence to convict Severance in all three murders. Along with eyewitnesses from the two later slayings, two revolvers had gone missing from Severance’s girlfriend’s apartment, and he had fled to the Russian Embassy the day police announced a link between the deaths. In journals, he repeatedly expressed a desire to kill the local “elite.”

Finally, the judges concluded that it was constitutional to sentence Severance to capital murder in both Kirby’s and Lodato’s killings.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...4d09ff5a4a8_story.html?utm_term=.fcc8a7b1ac8a
16685
 
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