Powell guilty of capital murder - again

By: | Inside NoVA
Published: January 16, 2003

Again, a jury has found Paul Warner Powell guilty of capital murder. Jurors reached their verdict after two hours of deliberations Wednesday morning.

Powell's original May 2000 capital murder conviction was overturned by the Virginia Supreme Court in April 2001. The justices ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support a capital murder indictment and that Powell should be tried instead for first-degree murder.

Wednesday, that argument was raised by Powell's defense team. In order to find Powell guilty of capital murder under this indictment, the jury had to find Powell guilty of attempting to rape 16-year-old Stacie Reed before he murdered her in her Yorkshire home Jan. 29, 1999. The defense agreed that Powell raped and attempted to murder Stacie's younger sister Kristie, and that Powell murdered Stacie, but said the killing should be considered first-degree, not capital murder.

But a letter Powell wrote Ebert from Sussex I State Prison in Waverly while awaiting his first-degree murder trial included a description of trying to rape Stacie before killing her. In December 2001, Powell was again indicted on a capital murder charge.

'It seems strange that he could take some girl's life and not face capital murder. But there must be something underlying the murder itself,' Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert said in closing arguments, before arguing such evidence exists.

'There is no physical evidence, no DNA, no clothing fibers. Look at the crime scene photo of poor Stacie in a pool of blood. There is no evidence of attempted rape,' defense attorney Mark B. Williams said in his closing arguments. 'I ask you to do the hard thing -- think about what you saw and what you didn't see. Mr. Powell is being punished for that. He's right where he belongs: in prison.'

Powell guilty of capital murder - again

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