Recent Eastern Panhandle vigil highlights a growing trend to reinstate the death penalty in West Virginia.
By Misty Higgins
The State Journal
MARTINSBURG -- For months Elizabeth Devonshire has quietly supported her husband, Sidney, as he's undertaken a passionate effort to reinstate capital punishment in West Virginia.
But on a recent night in a Martinsburg park, Elizabeth took a more public stance. With 6-month-old grandson Daronte White cradled in one arm, Elizabeth gently stepped to the podium, placed her free hand over her heart, looked toward the crowd of more than 100 and found her voice.
Firm yet soft-spoken, Elizabeth shared a mother's worst pain: the brutal murder of her daughter and grandchild.
The Devonshires organized the Oct. 17 Community Candlelight Vigil at War Memorial Park. The event included songs and prayers, as well as remarks from local religious and political leaders and from family members who have lost loved ones to violence.
The evening's dual aim was to remember the victims and to unite the survivors on the controversial issue.
Those who organized the vigil believe that by adding capital punishment as an option to judges and juries, criminals would be less likely to commit murders and other violent crimes. West Virginia, they say, would be safer.
"If I can touch one person tonight, it can be a link in the chain of change," Sidney said.
Deborah Newell clutched a picture of daughter Jessica and gave an emotional testimony about her 7-year-old's 1997 murder at the hands of her uncle, Michael Newell, who received a life sentence for the crime. Deborah and husband, David, support the return of capital punishment to the state.
"We need it here," David said.
Katherine Sharp was stabbed to death in June of 2009 by an ex-boyfriend with a decades-long record of violence in his hometown of Winchester, Va. Sharp's family members say the two life sentences that Donald Surber received for the crime are not enough.
"It was a brutal, brutal murder," said Patricia Madison, Sharp's mother.
During the vigil, three Republicans who serve in the House of Delegates from Berkeley County -- John Overington, Walter Duke and Jonathon Miller -- all voiced their support of the death penalty.
Overington, who has worked for decades to get the issue before the House, said he is encouraged by the rising level of support he's seeing in the Panhandle.
"Sometimes some bills take a year or three years or five or 10 years. This could take 25 or 30 years," Overington said.
Added Overington: "Sidney provides a great testimonial on why we need capital punishment. We have not had this sort of momentum before. I'm excited."
The Devonshires, who live near the Virginia border in Bunker Hill, said they hadn't thought a lot about capital punishment until their daughter, Angela, 22, and grandson, Andre Jr., 3, were found slain four months ago.
Since then, they've set out on a mission to gain support for House Bill 2802.
As a state without the option of capital punishment, West Virginia stands alone among its immediate neighbors. Hundreds of inmates are on death row in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio.
A man Angela had been dating -- Antonio Prophet, 34, of Lorton, Va. -- has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bond at Eastern Regional Jail in connection with the crime. During the vigil, the elder Andre White tearfully talked about the pain of losing his older son and the mother of his children.
"There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about Angela," he said. "Or Andre."
Rumors abound that the murders had a possible drug connection, but the Devonshires want to protect their daughter's reputation even as their efforts on behalf of capital punishment makes their private pain very public.
"Angela had her struggles," Elizabeth told the crowd gathered at the vigil. "But I'm very proud of my daughter. And that little boy was my joy."
Although a reinstatement of the death penalty wouldn't apply in the legal case against the man accused of killing their daughter and grandson, the Devonshires say they will remain steadfast in their fight.
"We have come together saying we in West Virginia are not going to let people come in and just take our loved ones," Elizabeth explained following the vigil. "I am going to stand beside my husband if it takes 10 years. They have got a fight on their hands."
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