Convicted killer Paul Warner Powell died in the electric chair Thursday night, more than a decade after he murdered a 16-year-old Manassas girl, raped her younger sister and left her to die.
Powell, 31, was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. at the state’s death chamber in Jarratt, capping off a lengthy ordeal in which he was twice tried, found guilty and sentenced to death in the killing of Stacie Reed. He stayed silent when asked for his last words.
“His actions on that night were nightmarish,” said Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert, the prosecutor in the case. “He’s the poster child for the death penalty in my opinion. I haven’t received any evidence that he has any remorse for anybody but himself.”
After the Virginia Supreme Court overturned Powell’s initial 2000 death sentence, he sent prosecutors a sneering letter describing how he entered the girls’ home, tried to rape Stacie and stabbed her to death when she resisted. He then waited for Reeds’ 14-year-old sister to come back from school and attacked her.
That letter was the impetus for Powell’s second trial and conviction three years later, because it allowed the prosecution to establish that he killed Stacie in the commission of an attempted rape — making him eligible for the death penalty.
Powell’s appeals attorney, Jonathan Sheldon, argues the jury in the second trial was shown an uncertified, error-laden list of his conviction history that influenced the outcome. Sheldon also has argued the subsequent trial violated “double jeopardy” protections in the U.S. Constitution.
The Supreme Court of Virginia opinion affirming Powell’s second conviction failed to address that issue, he said.
“There is no legal logic in there that got them around it,” said Sheldon. “Basically, the bottom line is, they said this case is different.”
Sheldon said he did not plan to file any last-minute appeals.
The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals also had refused to overturn Powell’s second conviction, although a dissenting judge held that it did — in fact — equate to double jeopardy. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case this year.
Powell is the first inmate to be executed under the administration of Gov. Bob McDonnell — who last week declined his clemency petition — and the second in a row to request to die by electrocution over injection.
Virginia’s last three executions were men prosecuted by Ebert: Powell, Larry Bill Elliot and Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad.
