When Marie Jones left the sentencing hearing for the man who’d savagely beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled her sister to death in a Virginia Beach motel room, she felt a huge sense of relief.
Not only did the judge give James Richard King the maximum sentence of two life prison terms, he told King it was his intention that “you never see the light of freedom again until your life comes to an end.”
“That’s what I thought was going to happen,” Jones said during an interview. “I was sure he was going to die in prison.”
But now — less than seven months after that sentencing hearing — King is getting a chance at parole. That’s because Virginia law allows “geriatric” prisoners to petition the parole board for conditional release once they’ve met certain conditions.
King, now 72, has been incarcerated since he turned himself in to police in September 2020 for the death of his friend Lexie Walters. He spent more than four years in the Virginia Beach city jail waiting for his case to go to trial last October, and was sentenced in February.
Virginia law allows prisoners 65 and older who’ve been incarcerated for at least five years in their current case to petition the parole board for a hearing. Those 60 and older who’ve served at least 10 years also can request a hearing.
King told investigators he and Walters had been drinking heavily together at a bar before heading to his room at a local motel. When he woke up the next morning, he found the 53-year-old woman dead, but said he had no memory of what had happened.
King also told detectives he’d done “the same thing” to another woman years before and that he “flips out” sometimes.
The first slaying happened in 1986 in Lucas County, Ohio. The victim was the mother of the bride at a wedding King attended. Just as in the murder of Walters, the woman in the 1986 case was savagely beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled.
King also turned himself in to police in that case. He was convicted of murder in 1990, was sentenced to 15 years to life, and released after 20. He moved to Virginia Beach after his release.
In 2019, he was charged with raping, sodomizing and strangling another woman he’d been dating. The jury in that case, however, chose only to convict him of assault. He was released immediately because he’d already spent more time in jail waiting for trial than he could get for the misdemeanor conviction.
Jones said she was stunned when she got an email last month informing her that King had a parole interview scheduled for Sept. 2. If his request is denied, he can get another hearing every year unless the board orders a longer interval.
“I thought it was a mistake,” she said. “I didn’t think that was possible, especially after the judge had said he would never see the light of day again.”
Jones and her mother were informed that they could offer input on the case. They have a Zoom meeting scheduled with the board later this week, during which they will urge its members to keep King incarcerated. The Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office also have expressed to the board their objections to his release.
Jones believes the law needs to be changed to prevent this kind of situation from happening to another victim’s family, and said she has been reaching out to local lawmakers for assistance.
“It hadn’t even been a year since his sentencing, and we get this email out of nowhere,” she said. “We were just trying to heal and now it’s as if it’s starting all over again.”
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
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