Virginia Murder Makes History
The Murder
On July 25, 1980, 47-year-old Dorothy White didn’t show up for work and didn’t call in sick. The Hampton, Virginia woman was always reliable so co-workers became concern and decided to drive to her trailer home to check on her.
Upon entering the trailer, they found Dorothy’s body lying on the kitchen floor. Her blouse and bra were pulled up, exposing her breasts; she was otherwise nude. Her throat had been cut, and she had sustained several other wounds. A “milky-looking substance [that] appeared to be wet” was visible on her pubic hair. The kitchen was splattered with blood, but there were no signs of a struggle in any other portion of Dorothy’s home nor any evidence of a forced entry into the dwelling.
An autopsy was performed the next day, during which samples of Dorothy’s hair, blood, and body fluids were collected from her body by using a Physical Evidence Recovery Kit (PERK).
Testing of those samples revealed the presence of intact sperm on the swabs taken from Dorothy’s privates. The autopsy documented that Dorothy had suffered a slash wound across her throat, which totally severed her trachea, the right carotid artery, the jugular vein, and certain muscles in her neck; the wound partially severed the esophagus.
Dorothy had also sustained a stab wound to her neck; three stab wounds to her chest, one of which penetrated her heart; and stab wounds to her abdomen and flank, for a total of eight stab wounds. Additional defensive wounds on her hands and legs indicated that Dorothy had attempted to ward away the knife blows.
Several of the wounds individually could have caused Dorothy’s death, but the slash wound to her throat was “fatal within minutes.” However, despite the lethal nature of that wound, it did not render Dorothy instantly unconscious.
Dr. Faruk B. Presswalla, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, would later testify that because the trachea, or windpipe, was cut, much of the flowing blood traveled down that airway. He described the effect as “sort of like drowning in your own blood.” The time of death was estimated at approximately 11:30 p.m. on the night before Dorothy’s co-workers discovered her body.
In the days following the murder, police officers interviewed several individuals as possible suspects. A key person of interest was William Morrisette.
Morrisette’s sister described him as a man who enjoyed working around cars which landed him jobs at local car dealerships. He also did maintenance and prep work on the vehicles. Morrisette’s sister said that his free time was spent with their family. “Me and my brother have always been close. I’m the baby and he’s so protective of me.”
When questioned by police Morrisette acknowledged that he knew Dorothy through his employer, Albert “Bill” Anthony, who was Dorothy’s “boyfriend,” and that he had previously washed Dorothy’s automobile when she brought it to Anthony’s “car lot.” Morrisette had also accompanied Anthony to Dorothy’s residence on two occasions, once to perform yard work and the second time to pick up a stereo.
When Morrisette was questioned concerning his whereabouts on the night in Dorothy was murdered, he stated that he had gone to Fertitta’s Restaurant, where he had consumed hot dogs and beer. He stated that after eating, he walked to the Grandview Fishing Pier, talked with several people who were fishing, and drank another beer.
According to Morrisette, he then went to the Circle Inn around 10:00 p.m. and stayed there until 2:00 a.m. the following morning. He told the police that, although his sister lived in an apartment above the Inn, he did not go to her apartment when he left, but instead slept in an old Dodge pick-up truck in the parking lot of the Circle Inn. He said that he awoke around 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. the next morning, returned to the Inn, and drank with a person who lived in a trailer park across the street.
With no further evidence and leads drying up Dorthy’s case went cold. But events that happened 5 years after Dorthy’s death would lead to a break in her case 19 years later.
The Hostage
It was an exceptionally hot day on July 11, 1985 when Virginia Brown, a 45-year-old school teacher, drove her daughter to band practice at Bethel High School. She remembers the day being so hot that she left the driver’s side door pushed open to capture any breeze.
After dropping off her daughter, Brown waited in the side parking lot at the high school for practice to conclude, passing the time with some cross-stitching. Suddenly, a man approached the driver’s door. “He asked if I knew when practice would be over,” Brown said. “ I told him I had no idea.”
Brown said the man appeared agitated, but she ignored him and returned to her stitching. She was interrupted a second time by the sound of footsteps. The same man, this time wearing sunglasses and carrying a knife, stood over Brown outside the driver’s door. She recalls him as a short, disheveled man with dirty blond hair with flecks of gray. But it was his steel-blue eyes that she remembers most.
Brown said the man had a gray, wrinkled handkerchief that he was going to use to gag her. But when he ordered her to open her mouth, she refused and clenched her teeth.
“I didn’t want him to put that thing in my mouth. He ordered me to drive him up the road somewhere. He said he would kill me if I didn’t take him.” Despite the threat, Brown refused to drive.
“I told him I would not take him, I didn’t want my family to have to look for me. Dead or alive, I wanted them to know where I was.”
While the man was looking away, Brown flung the car keys out the window. They landed under another parked car. Suddenly, the man slid into the driver’s seat, pushed a knife against Brown’s throat, and again ordered her to drive. Again, she refused. He pressed the knife harder and the blade cut slightly into her face and neck. Still, she refused to drive.
As the parking lot filled with other parents, the man bolted from the car and ran. Brown leaped from her car, screamed hysterically and pointed in the direction the man had run.
“Some people came up and I showed them the cuts on my face. When they saw that, they knew I was serious.”
Someone in the parking lot went to a nearby house and called police.
The man would later be identified as William Morrisette. After fleeing from the car, Morrisette hid behind a nearby house but returned a short time later for his own vehicle, a gold Ford Pinto. Brown would later say that another parent who saw the suspicious man earlier, jotted down the license number when he got into the Pinto. A Crime Line tip eventually alerted authorities that Morrisette was in North Carolina, and he was arrested.
Morrisette was convicted of malicious wounding and abduction for the attack on Brown. He was sentenced to 15 years, 10 suspended, for the wounding and 10 years for abduction. Morrisette was paroled on Nov. 7, 1994. Three months later, the Hampton court returned him to prison for another five years for violating probation because of a drunken driving violation.
On Oct. 27, 1995, he submitted a blood sample for the Virginia State DNA databank.
Now remember the seamen that was found on Dorthy? Well, in 1999, Dorthy’s sister-in-law, Doris White, demanded that the Hampton police run DNA tests on evidence from Dorthy’s case. The Hampton police eventually recovered DNA samples once thought to be lost from their property-and-evidence room.
These samples were then compared to the then 80,000 other samples in the Virginia State DNA databank. And wouldn’t you know it, a positive match came back. Can you guess who?
Yep, William Morrisette.
Finally, Hampton police were able to solve Dorthy’s case and on August 28, 1999 Morrisette was arrested in Newport News and charged with Dorthy’s murder and rape.
Science says just one in 900 million Caucasian men could have left behind the same DNA. Those odds were good enough for a Hampton judge, who decided to send rape and murder charges against Morrisette to a grand jury for indictment.
This is where things get interesting.
The Trial
Most of the information from this point on is taken from actual court documents. Now I’m no lawyer but I will do my best to interpret what was done. If your into reading and interpreting court documents I’ll be posting a link to what I used.
During the pre-trial Morrisette’s lawyers claimed that the delay between the time of the offense in 1980 and his arrest in August 1999 violated his due process rights under both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Virginia.
In the statement that Morrisette gave to the police shortly after the murder, he provided details concerning his whereabouts on the evening in question, including names, addresses, and telephone numbers of putative corroborating witnesses. Testimony at trial established that the police never made any attempt to confirm Morrisette’s alleged alibi after he provided that information.
Morrisette asserts that, as a result of the pre-indictment delay, he was unable to locate the people who could have corroborated his version of his activities on the evening when Dorthy was murdered.
To support his claim of prejudice because of the pre-indictment delay, Morrisette also relies on the fact that, in 1985, Dorthy’s PERK samples were resubmitted to the forensic laboratory for testing against Morrisette’s PERK samples collected in connection with the abduction and maiming charges.
However, Morrisette’s PERK was never submitted to the laboratory, and the Hampton Police Department eventually directed that Dorthy’s PERK be returned without any additional testing.
In denying Morrisette’s motion to dismiss the indictments because of the pre-indictment delay, the trial court concluded that both the Commonwealth and Morrisette had probably experienced some actual prejudice because of the death of witnesses since Dorthy’s murder.
However, the court determined that a defendant has the burden to establish that the delay was intentional and used by the Commonwealth to gain a tactical advantage, and concluded that Morrisette had not carried that burden in this case.
To gain dismissal of criminal charges because of pre-arrest or pre-indictment delay, a defendant must establish that “(1) the prosecutor intentionally delayed indicting [the defendant] to gain a tactical advantage and (2) the defendant incurred actual prejudice as a result of the delay. Morrisette failed to establish that the Commonwealth intentionally delayed arresting or indicting him in order to gain a tactical advantage.
The trial moved forward but Morrisette even challenged the trail court’s rulings with regard to two jurors. He claimed that the court erred by striking juror Cooper for cause and by failing to excuse juror Johnson for cause.
The court excused Cooper because she indicated that she could not consider imposing the death penalty under any circumstances.
As for Johnson, Morrisette moved to excuse this juror because, on the morning of trial, Johnson had read a newspaper article containing information about White’s murder and Morrisette’s prior conviction for maiming. Johnson also had some independent recollection of the occurrence of White’s murder. When asked if his memory coupled with the newspaper article had “put facts in [his] mind that would stay with [him] through the course of this trial[,]” juror Johnson responded:
“That would be a little hard to answer, sir. Of course, it would, you know, my memories and reading the paper, but I think that I would listen to the witnesses and just disregard what I’ve seen or heard up to this point and just listen to the witnesses. I think so.”
The trial court denied Morrisette’s motion to excuse Johnson, concluding that Johnson was simply being honest in his response and that he could listen to the evidence with an open mind.
History Was Made
On August 15, 2001 the jury convicted Morrisette of capital murder and rape of Dorthy and sentenced him to death. On Sept. 13, 2002, the Virginia Supreme Court denied Morrisette’s motion and affirmed his capital murder conviction and death sentence.
But in 2005, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that Morrisette had been denied the effective assistance of counsel at the penalty phase of his 2001 trial when his attorneys failed to object to verdict forms that did not accurately reflect Virginia law. The Court granted a limited writ of habeas corpus and remanded the case to the Hampton Circuit Court for re-sentencing before a new jury. This represented the first contested capital case in Virginia history in which the state supreme court had sustained a claim of ineffective assistance.
In a twist, on the remand for re-sentencing a circuit judge initially reappointed the same lead counsel whom the Virginia Supreme Court had found to have been ineffective, but the attorney withdrew when Morissette adamantly objected.
After more than three years of negotiation, Morrisette entered into a sentencing agreement with the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Hampton. Under the terms of the agreement, Morrisette would be sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder and rape of Dorthy.
As part of the agreement, Morrisette agreed to withdraw his federal habeas petition challenging his convictions, and to forego any further appeals or collateral litigation related to his convictions and sentences. Morrisette also waived his right to be considered for parole and agreed not to petition for parole.
An agreement was reached and Morrisette was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, a sentence that was technically unavailable at the time of the murder.
As far as I know Morrisette is still alive and serving his time in prison. His case made history as he was able to over turn his death sentence due to misrepresentation which doesn’t happen often.
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