[Flexwave2003]

Killer smiles, families weep as jury recommends deathStory Highlights
NEW: Jury took less than three hours to recommend death for William Morva

Lawyer says Morva acted "like he won the lottery"

Families of victims, Morva's mother wept at sentence

Guard, deputy killed in escape attempt






ABINGDON, Virginia (AP) -- A jury recommended the death penalty Thursday for a man who murdered a hospital security guard and a sheriff's deputy after escaping from custody.


William Morva faces the death penalty after being found guilty of capital murder.

1 of 2 Families of his victims and his own mother wept as the verdicts were read, but William Morva smiled slightly and snapped his fingers. He nodded to jurors and patted his attorney after he learned his fate.

"He seemed to be acting like he won the lottery," said Harold McFarland, whose son Derrick was one of Morva's victims.

It took about three hours for the Washington County jury to agree that Morva, 26, should be executed rather than face life in prison without parole. That's slightly less than it took the panel Tuesday to convict him of capital murder in the August 2006 killings.

Morva was a jail inmate who had been taken to a Blacksburg hospital for treatment of an injury when he overpowered a Montgomery County sheriff's deputy there. He used the deputy's pistol to shoot security guard Derrick McFarland, 32, who was unarmed.

A day later in the manhunt that followed, Morva shot 40-year-old sheriff's Cpl. Eric Sutphin, who was searching for the fugitive on a walking trail near the Virginia Tech campus.

Cindy McFarland, McFarland's widow, said her tears during the verdict were of happiness.

"He took two innocent people who didn't deserve to die, and now he deserves to die," she said.

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Harold McFarland said after Thursday's verdict that he is not a vengeful person but that he thought the death penalty was appropriate in certain cases.

"This is one of them," he said.

Jurors heard heart-rending prosecution testimony about the victims' exemplary lives, but the defense portrayed the killer as an eccentric free spirit with a personality disorder.

Montgomery County Commonwealth's Attorney Brad Finch called for the death penalty in his closing argument, saying Morva's crimes met both legal conditions for the most severe punishment: presenting a danger to society and depravity of mind.

"He is both extremely intelligent and extremely violent," he said. "That is a deadly combination."

Morva "showed no mercy" when he shot McFarland in the face from two feet away, Finch said. He then had more than a day to think about what he had done before he shot Sutphin in the back of the head.

"It did not faze him," he said. "That is depraved."

Defense attorney Tony Anderson said that the killing spree was spawned by Morva's fear of returning to jail and that life in prison would be more severe punishment than death.

Anderson acknowledged that what Morva did was horrible and urged jurors to "lock that jail and throw away the key" because death would represent freedom to his client.

"Don't let your hands unlock the chains, open the door and allow Mr. Morva to escape again," he said.

High school friends of Morva's described him as caring and gentle. But a psychiatrist who examined him after his arrest said he exhibited nearly all of the traits of schizotypal personality disorder, which made him an intense, inflexible person who was unable to see the perspective of others.

The defense said Morva had felt a building sense of frustration in jail, where he had been held for months without bond after his arrest on attempted robbery charges.

The trial had been moved 100 miles from Montgomery County because of difficulty seating a jury there last fall. E-mail to a friend

I knew William Morva, kind of strange to see somebody you know on CNN. Much less convicted of capital murder. The two people he killed, when I heard the news atleast came to me as a shock. This guy wasnt a murderer when I knew him, in fact quite the opposite. He was a very friendly, some what feminine guy. But always a nice kid. But definitely strange.

I got to watch a video of him going to court last week on the local news, he walks with a noticable limp now. Seemingly from a hip injury, something that wasnt present when I knew him. So somewhere along the way he got hurt pretty bad somehow. Definitely hard to believe this guy killed two people, but he did. He had to have had a motivating factor, because this guy had not one violent bone in his body when I knew him.

Just goes to show you, you never know about somebody.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/13/...ef=mpstoryview

[Oeshon]

how well did you know him?

[Sportman]

Originally Posted by Flexwave2003

I knew William Morva, kind of strange to see somebody you know on CNN. Much less convicted of capital murder. The two people he killed, when I heard the news atleast came to me as a shock. This guy wasnt a murderer when I knew him, in fact quite the opposite. He was a very friendly, some what feminine guy. But always a nice kid. But definitely strange.

I got to watch a video of him going to court last week on the local news, he walks with a noticable limp now. Seemingly from a hip injury, something that wasnt present when I knew him. So somewhere along the way he got hurt pretty bad somehow. Definitely hard to believe this guy killed two people, but he did. He had to have had a motivating factor, because this guy had not one violent bone in his body when I knew him.

Just goes to show you, you never know about somebody.

Sounds like suicide via death penalty.

Must be a weird feeling to have known the guy, have memories with him. That's the thing though, it's easy to read cases like this and brush the murderer off as completely insane, and on a whole different level to everyone else. But really they're just people with hobbies, friends, opinions like you and me who just happen to have been pushed to their brink

[Flexwave2003]

Originally Posted by Oeshon

how well did you know him?

I didnt know him extremely well, but had contact with him quite a few times throughout the years. He was always somebody that was made fun of by other kids, somebody who would be used as a crutch to make other people feel better about themselves because he was different. He was definitely strange as I mentioned earlier, but I knew alot of unique guys back in those days. He was always bit girlish as I mentioned, something which Im sure wont be overlooked where he is headed.

[Horus]

I think most people are capable of murder. All it takes is the right triggers, right emotional state/state of mind and the right situation.

Guess a lot of it is down to the nature v nurture thing. Many serial killers, when you read up, have clear triggers in their child hood that ensured they were not going to be treated as an ordinary person by their peers. Charles Manson is a good example. He apparently was made to go to school wearing a dress on some occasions. Just an example of some fucked up things that kids have to endure, and are then expected to be 'normal'. Once they become a bit socially awkward or strange they get shunned and can become more lost.
People that are 'strange' or a little different socially often don't cope too well with extreme stressors.

I'm not making excuses, but clearly some people do not get the same start in young life that many of us get and it really shows when they reach adulthood.

[bobbylight]

Originally Posted by Horus

I think most people are capable of murder.

I think you are VERY wrong.

[Revolution]

It does not take a highly developed sense of one's place in the world to realize there is something profoundly wrong with murdering two people. (I'm paraphrasing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia here.)

So, my only question regarding Morva is this: regular or extra-crispy?

[Zankou]

I'm not sure how "innocent" the people he killed were, considering they were trying to imprison him. They're more akin to soldiers than innocent citizens.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't get the death penalty, but it just strikes me as odd that a police officer can try to arrest somebody and throw them in prison for life as an enemy of the state -- and if you fight back, you are fighting against an innocent man. A justified man, maybe, but about as innocent as a soldier.

[MyCatIsFat]

Sounds like a real scumbag.

[Revolution]

Originally Posted by Zankou

I'm not sure how "innocent" the people he killed were, considering they were trying to imprison him. They're more akin to soldiers than innocent citizens.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't get the death penalty, but it just strikes me as odd that a police officer can try to arrest somebody and throw them in prison for life as an enemy of the state -- and if you fight back, you are fighting against an innocent man. A justified man, maybe, but about as innocent as a soldier.

Very interesting point. Ya got me there.