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Thread: Michael Clagett - Virginia Execution - July 6, 2000

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    Michael Clagett - Virginia Execution - July 6, 2000


    Lam Son




    Facts of Crime: Fatally shot four people during a robbery in Virginia Beach in 1994

    Victims: Lam Son, Wendell Parish, Karen Sue Rounds and Abdelaziz Gren

    Time of Death: 9:08 p.m.

    Manner of execution: Electric Chair

    Last Meal:

    Final Statement: Asked if he wanted to make a final statement, Clagett broke into tears and asked the families of those he had slain to forgive him.

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    July 7, 2000

    Clagett Dies in Electric Chair for '94 Killings

    JARRATT, Va., July 6 -- A man who urged the state to execute him for shooting four people in the head during a $400 robbery at a Virginia Beach bar was put to death in Virginia's electric chair tonight.

    Michael David Clagett, 39, was pronounced dead at 9:08 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center, said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

    Asked if he wanted to make a final statement, Clagett broke into tears and asked the families of those he had slain to forgive him.

    Clagett shot and killed four people, including a bar owner who had befriended him, during a robbery at the Witchduck Inn, a neighborhood bar in Virginia Beach, on June 30, 1994. He was convicted of murdering business owner Lam Son, 41, employees Wendell Parish, 32, and Karen Sue Rounds, 31, and a patron, Abdelaziz Gren, 34. Each was shot once in the head.

    The day after the killings, police found Clagett passed out in some bushes near an apartment building. Unsteady on his feet and smelling of alcohol, he was arrested for public intoxication.

    Clagett's girlfriend and accomplice in the slayings, Denise Holsinger, 35, had already tipped off police that Clagett was involved.

    At the police station, Clagett was questioned by detectives and admitted to the killings. He said the victims were shot while he and Holsinger robbed the inn of $400.

    In the videotaped interview, Clagett told police: "You can fry me. That's what I'm going to ask for when we go to court. Fry me, I'm not gonna live. I don't want the taxpayers supporting me. I did it. Yeah, I did it all."

    Clagett got his wish. He was only the second person to die in the electric chair since condemned prisoners in Virginia were given the option of lethal injection in 1995. Fifty-one inmates have opted for lethal injection since then.

    Lanna Son, Son's widow, said her husband had been in the Vietnamese special forces and was imprisoned by the North Vietnamese when South Vietnam fell. He later fled to the United States on a boat.

    "What makes me real bitter, is my husband, after he went through all that, and then he just got killed execution-style by Michael Clagett," Lanna Son said in a recent interview.

    Her husband had taken pity on Clagett, even cooked him meals, she said.

    "He [Clagett] always looked real scary. Long hair, stringy-looking, he looked exactly like a bum," she said. "I had warned my husband . . . 'You better be careful.' "

    Clagett was convicted of the capital murders after a 10-day trial and received four death sentences. Holsinger received five life sentences plus 23 years for her role.

    Clagett was the fourth person executed in Virginia this year and the 77th since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down his request for a stay of execution, and Clagett did not ask Gov. James S. Gilmore III for clemency, said his lawyer, Patrick O'Donnell.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...031601699.html

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    On Friday January 04, 2013 at 9:00 p.m. EST, ID Network will air The Wicked Witchduck Waitress from the series Pretty Bad Women giving center stage to Denise Holsinger, Michael Clagett's partner in crime.

    These murders took place 2 city blocks from my childhood home. My mom knew Lan Van Son's ( owner Witchduck Inn) wife, and Clagett was shooting pool at my brothers house 3 days before the murders. My brother didn't know Claggett, he was introduced to him by a co-worker from Budweiser.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    June 28, 2009

    Pain of quadruple murder still lingers 15 years later

    By Kathy Adams
    The Virginian-Pilot

    VIRGINIA BEACH - Thursday, June 30, 1994. It was a normal summer night at the Witchduck Inn Restaurant and Lounge on Pembroke Boulevard.

    Until a disgruntled former employee and her boyfriend entered the bar, took money from the register and murdered the owner, Lam Van "L.V." Son; a waitress and bartender, Karen S. Rounds; the cook and handyman, Wendel G. "J.R." Parrish Jr.; and a customer Abdelaziz "Aziz" Gren.

    It was the city's first quadruple homicide.

    They spared only the owner's 5-year-old son, who was asleep in the back.

    Detectives quickly caught the culprits, Denise R. Holsinger and Michael D. Clagett. Holsinger, now 45, is serving five life terms plus 23 years in prison for the crime. Clagett was executed almost nine years ago at the age of 39.

    Though the tragedy occurred a distant 15 years ago, far from the minds of Virginia Beach residents, the pain is still fresh for the victims' loved ones.

    On that muggy night, Son, 41, was expecting friends for a post-remodeling celebration. Parrish, 32, was having a beer at the counter. Rounds, 31, was bartending; and Gren, 34, sat nearby.

    Holsinger, a mother of three, stopped in for a beer with her boyfriend, Clagett. She had recently been fired from her job as a Witchduck Inn waitress because she called in sick too often and drank on the job. But she still spent time there drinking and shooting pool.

    Clagett was also a frequent bar patron, and the owner often gave him free beer and food when he was low on cash.

    But this time, they weren't there for beer or company.

    Holsinger jumped behind the counter and began emptying the register. Clagett, armed with a .357 Magnum revolver, ordered everyone to lie face down on the ground.

    They all complied, except Parrish. So Clagett shot him, pulling the trigger just inches from his face.

    Then, with Holsinger's encouragement, Clagett shot Son, Gren and Rounds, one-by-one in the back of the head.

    As the couple sprinted for the back door with their $400, they spotted the owner's son sleeping in the back office.

    Holsinger told Clagett to shoot him. They couldn't risk leaving any witnesses, she said.

    But he just couldn't do it. So they left, leaving the little boy undisturbed.

    Joshua Son, the boy who slept through it all, lost his father, the bar's owner, that night. His mother, Lanna Son, lost her husband.

    Lanna Son said she doesn't mind talking about what happened. She just doesn't want people to forget.

    She hasn't forgotten how she screamed when police told her the news. She hasn't forgotten how, before he'd been caught, Clagett hugged her and apologized for her loss. Son hasn't forgotten how, for years, she struggled with alcohol, depression and raising a son on her own.

    Joshua Son hasn't forgotten either.

    He still remembers sitting in the back of a police car that night, watching the stretchers go by and not knowing what was beneath the swollen sheets. He still remembers when an older cousin told him his father was dead. He still remembers the horror of seeing him lying lifeless in a casket.

    "I remember his voice," he said. "It was very soft and kind."

    The last time he heard that voice was the night of the shootings when they said good night.

    He awoke a few hours later to one of the bar's customers, whom he called "Uncle Richie," waking him up and taking him outside.

    Nothing was ever the same.

    Every Father's Day, every Christmas and every June 30 for the past 15 years has brought fresh pain, Lanna and Joshua Son said. "When a holiday comes or Father's Day comes, you feel it. You feel the emptiness," Lanna Son said.

    Fatna "Fouzia" Garcia said her family never recovered from the loss of her brother, Gren. Their holiday celebrations never fully regained their cheer, and she still cries and sees him in her dreams, she said. "Life is completely changed," she said.

    Carolyn Cussins, Parrish's mother, said she lights candles for "J.R." every June 30. In two days, she'll also visit his grave.

    "It's really hard," Cussins said. "We live with it every day that he's gone.... We will live with it for the rest of our lives."

    When Holsinger comes up for parole in July 2011, Cussins said she'll be there.

    "I don't think she ever deserves to get out of prison," she said. "Does she realize how many lives she changed?"

    In a letter dated Aug. 18, 1999, Joshua Son told Clagett he would never forgive him.

    "I will never ever forgive you for what you have don," the 10-year-old wrote. "You made it where I grown up without a father. You made it where I had to grow up with an incomplete family."

    But when Clagett wrote the Sons to ask for forgiveness, they gave it.

    Lanna Son witnessed Clagett's execution. He died in an electric chair July 6, 2000.

    She said she still sends occasional cards to Holsinger to remind her of the pain she caused. She writes things such as, "Remember June 30, 1994, at Witchduck Inn?" or "I'm surrounded with all my family this Christmas. How about you?"

    She said she wishes she had more photos of her late husband. One of the few taken before his death shows the proud father smiling broadly with a fuzzy-haired, 4-year-old on his lap.

    Joshua Son is 20 now, but he still has the same fuzzy hair. He just finished his second year at Virginia Tech, where he's studying urban planning and graphic design. He said he hopes to travel and maybe join the Peace Corps one day.

    His mother remarried in 2007 and still lives in the same home she shared with Lam Van Son. Lanna Son Branham sold the Witchduck Inn years ago. It's Tango's Tavern now.

    "Joshua grew up without a father, but he's doing great," she said. "Now it's time to enjoy life, start again."

    The detectives

    Despite no witnesses and few leads, a team of detectives with the Virginia Beach Police Department solved the Witchduck Inn murders during a whirlwind investigation, putting Michael D. Clagett and Denise R. Holsinger behind bars within 48 hours of the crime. Here’s what some of them are doing today, and what they remember about June 30, 1994:

    • Paul Yoakam, homicide detective
      His role: Lead investigator
      What he remembers: “The senselessness of it all. You had four people killed for only $400.”
      What he’s doing now: He retired from the Police Department in 2007 and moved to Chesapeake, where he works as a substitute teacher. He’s also worked on several TV programs about the Witchduck Inn murders and other crimes.
    • Bob Sager, homicide detective
      His role: Crime scene investigator
      What he remembers: “It was certainly one of the worst crime scenes I ever saw.”
      What he’s doing now: He retired from the Police Department in 2001 but still lives in Virginia Beach near his nine grandchildren. He now drives a dump truck for a sand company.
    • John VanderHeiden, homicide unit supervisor
      His role: Oversaw the investigation
      What he remembers: “It was a very traumatic case for the city and the people involved.” Solving the case “was a team effort.”
      What he’s doing now: He retired in 2001 and is traveling the country with his wife in an RV. In the last year, they’ve been from Oregon to New York.
    • Dan Kappers, acting commander of the detective bureau
      His role: Oversaw the investigation
      What he remembers: “It was brutal. There’s no two ways about it. There was probably more blood and tissue at that scene than I’d seen before.”
      What he’s doing now: He retired from the Police Department in 1998 and now works as a personal trainer in Virginia Beach.


    http://hamptonroads.com/2009/06/pain...15-years-later
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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