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Thread: William Aristede Saunders aka William Ira Saunders - Virginia

  1. #1
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    William Aristede Saunders aka William Ira Saunders - Virginia

    Wallens Ridge inmate charged with murder of cellmate was previously on death row

    21 years after a Virginia governor commuted the death sentence of a convicted murderer, the man has been charged again with capital murder.

    William Aristede Saunders, also known as William Ira Saunders, remains incarcerated at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, where his cellmate, Donald Gary, 55, died May 18. Saunders, 48, has been indicted by a Wise County grand jury in Gary's death.

    An inmate-on-inmate attack was suspected in Gary's death, according to Lisa Kinney, a spokeswoman with the Virginia Department of Corrections. The cause of death has not been released.

    Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Chuck Slemp declined to comment on the case.

    Saunders is currently serving a sentence of life plus 7 years, Kinney said Friday. He was sentenced to death earlier, but it was commuted.

    He was sentenced on Dec. 1, 1989, to 4 years on a statutory burglary charge, records show. Also in 1989, he was sentenced to 4 years on a grand larceny charge.

    On May 3, 1990, he was convicted of capital murder and was sentenced to death. But on Sept. 15, 1997, while Saunders was on death row, Gov. George Allen commuted the death sentence and ordered him to serve life without parole.

    Authorities said Saunders fatally shot a man, Mervin Dale Guill, during a drug deal on July 17, 1989, in Danville, Virginia.

    In addition to a death sentence for capital murder, a judge also sentenced Saunders to life in prison on a robbery charge, 2 years on a use of a firearm in a felony charge and 1 year for arson.

    Gov. Allen said that he was "swayed by a prosecutor and judge who said Saunders is not the same violent man sentenced to death" for the 1989 murder, and "it would be in the 'best interest of justice' for Saunders' sentence to be commuted to life in prison."

    During sentencing, the judge was informed of a number of incidents that occurred at the city jail, including fights and fires. Saunders also has a juvenile record.

    In court records, Saunders' mother describes him as being very personable. She believes his main problem is that he is too easily influenced by others.

    Saunders was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Danville area.

    He has been involved with the court system and off and on probation, or in jail, since the early 1980s, according to records.

    Gary, the person killed in an inmate-on-inmate attack in May, had also been serving a life sentence. According to reports, he was convicted in 1998 of kidnapping 2 women from a Danville trailer park at gunpoint, then robbing a man at a car wash and stealing his vehicle.

    Saunders is scheduled to appear in Wise County Circuit Court on Aug. 22 to advise the court about attorney arrangements.

    (source: Bristol Herald Courier)
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    This guy is probably the best argument to keep CP alive in Virginia. He spent 7 years on death row for a brutal murder, then got commuted. And now he’s again charged with capital murder because he killed another inmate.

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    Liberals don't give a rat's behind about victims. Only criminals because that keeps the left wing loonies voting for them
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    Jury finds Saunders guilty on lesser murder charge

    By MIKE STILL
    timesnews.net

    WISE — A Wise County jury has found a Wallens Ridge inmate guilty on a lesser murder charge in connection with the 2018 death of his cellmate.

    William Saunders stood quietly as Circuit Court Judge John C. Kilgore read the jury’s two-count guilty verdict on second-degree murder and strangulation for the May 18, 2018, killing of Donald Wayne Gary.

    The jury deliberated for almost three hours on Friday after three days of testimony about how Saunders and Gary fought as Saunders was exercising in their shared cell.

    Saunders and his defense attorneys mounted a claim of self-defense, with Saunders telling the jury Thursday how Gary attacked him.

    Saunders had been charged with capital murder and strangulation. Kilgore instructed jurors that they could make findings of capital, first-degree or second- degree murder; involuntary or voluntary manslaughter; or not guilty, based on the presence or lack of premeditation, malice, willfulness, heat of passion and other factors.

    Kilgore also gave the jury the options to consider strangulation, assault-and-battery or not guilty on the second charge.

    In closing arguments, Wise County Commonwealth’s Attorney Chuck Slemp III and defense co-counsels Walt Rivers and Greg Kallen presented their views on whether Saunders was acting in self-defense when he choked Gary.

    Slemp said Saunders’ act, his testimony, and investigators’ statements showed he met the legal elements for capital murder: killing, malice, willfulness, deliberation and premeditation.

    Rivers argued that none of the elements were present and noted that Saunders made consistent statements about Gary’s attack to a state Department of Corrections investigator in two interviews after the incident.

    Rivers also noted five video and print depositions from inmates who had shared a cell with Gary.

    All of the depositions included accounts of Gary being aggressive and a bully, Rivers said, while four of the inmates testified that Gary made and drank illicit wine in prison.

    Rivers pointed to prison officers’ statements that they saw no sign of wine-making in the cell after the incidents and to autopsy results that showed Gary had a blood alcohol level from 0.15 to 0.188.

    Responding to Slemp’s claims of Saunders’ intent to kill Gary, Rivers said the accused stated at various times that he warned Gary he was going to hurt him if he did not stop.

    “(Gary’s) dead because he got drunk and attacked someone who had to defend himself,” Rivers said.

    Kallen quoted a Martha Reeves and the Vandellas song as to what Saunders faced that day.

    “Under the circumstances he had nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide,” Kallen said of Saunders. “They cannot say Mr. Gary wasn’t drunk,” Kallen said. “The evidence shows it.”

    Slemp asked the jury to consider a video still frame of Saunders waiting for a guard supervisor by the cell door with his laundry bag packed and Gary lying in the floor.

    “He looks like a lion or predator standing over his prey,” Slemp said.

    After the verdict, Saunders shook hands with his attorneys and Slemp before being taken away by prison guards.

    Sentencing for Saunders has been scheduled for Feb. 11, 2022, at 9 a.m.

    https://www.timesnews.net/news/jury-...6e6102067.html
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    Red Onion State Prison inmate sentenced to 20 years for murdering his cellmate

    An inmate at Red Onion State Prison was sentenced in the Wise County Circuit Court Friday after a 12-member jury found him guilty of second degree murder and strangulation in December 2021.

    Officials say 52-year-old William A. Saunders, originally of Danville, Virginia was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder charge and 5 years for the strangulation charge to run concurrently.

    Saunders will serve an active term of 20 years of incarceration to on top of his current life sentence for prior convictions, including murder.

    The convictions stem from crimes Saunders committed in May 2018 involving the death of fellow inmate Donald Wayne Gary at Wallens Ridge State Prison.

    Officials report that at the time of the killing, Saunders was serving multiple life sentences for the 1989 armed robbery and murder he committed in Danville, Virginia.

    During the investigation by the Special Investigations Unit of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Saunders admitted to weaponizing a pair of pants and using them to violently strangle his cellmate.

    Saunders was originally charged in 2018 with capital murder, but in 2021 the General Assembly repealed the death penalty

    Saunders remains in the custody of the Virginia Department of Corrections at Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Virginia.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/wcyb.co...g-his-cellmate

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