In the early morning hours of April 27, 2001, Christopher Scott Emmett beat his sleeping coworker John Langley to death with the base of a brass motel room lamp in order to rob Langley and use his cash to buy crack cocaine. Weldon Roofing Company employed Emmett and Langley as laborers for its roofing crews. During late April 2001, both men were assigned to a project in the City of Danville and shared a room at a local motel where the roofing crew was staying. On the evening of April 26, 2001, Emmett, Langley, Michael Darryl Pittman, and other members of the roofing crew cooked dinner on a grill at the motel, played cards, and drank beer. During the course of the evening, Langley loaned money to Emmett and Pittman, who used the money to buy crack cocaine. At approximately 11:00 p.m. that evening, Rainey Bell, another member of the roofing crew, heard a noise he described as "bang, bang" coming from the room Emmett and Langley shared. Shortly after midnight, Emmett went to the motel office and asked the clerk to call the police, saying that he had returned to his room, "seen blood and stuff . . . and didn’t know what had took place." The police arrived at the motel at 12:46 a.m. on April 27, 2001 and accompanied Emmett back to his room. There they discovered Langley’s dead body lying face down on Langley’s bed beneath a comforter. Blood spatters were found on the sheets and headboard of Langley’s bed, on the wall behind it, and on the wall between the bathroom and Emmett’s bed. A damaged brass lamp stained with Langley’s blood was discovered beneath Langley’s bed. In his initial statement to police, Emmett denied killing Langley. He stated that he had returned to the room and gone to bed. Emmett claimed to have discovered the blood and Langley’s body later that night when he got up to use the bathroom. Observing what appeared to be bloodstains on Emmett’s personal effects, the police took possession of Emmett’s boots and clothing with his permission. Emmett suggested that the blood might be his own because he had injured himself earlier in the week. Subsequent testing, however, revealed that Emmett’s boots and clothing were stained with Langley’s blood. Later in the morning of April 27, Emmett voluntarily accompanied the police to the Danville police station. There he agreed to be fingerprinted and gave a sample of his blood. Emmett admitted to the police that he had been drinking and using cocaine on the previous evening. Over the course of the next several hours, Emmett related different versions of the events of the previous evening to the police. He first implicated Pittman as Langley’s murderer, but ultimately Emmett told the police that he alone had beaten Langley to death with the brass lamp. Emmett was given Miranda warnings and he gave a full, taped confession. Emmett stated that he and Pittman decided to rob Langley after Langley refused to loan them more money to buy additional cocaine. Emmett stated that he struck Langley five or six times with the brass lamp, took Langley’s wallet, and left the motel to buy cocaine. "Based upon the amount of blood and bruising of Langley’s brain tissue at the point of impact," the medical examiner opined that "Langley was not killed immediately by the first blow from the lamp, but might have been unconscious after the first blow was struck and may have suffered ‘brain death’ prior to actual death." At the conclusion of the guilt phase of Emmett’s trial, Emmett was convicted by a jury of the capital murder and robbery of Langley. At the separate sentencing hearing, the Commonwealth sought the death penalty based upon Virginia’s statutory aggravating factors of future dangerousness and of vileness based upon aggravated battery and depravity of mind. In support of the future dangerousness factor, the prosecutor presented Emmett’s prior criminal history, to the extent it could be determined. The prosecutor was unable to establish why Emmett was incarcerated as a juvenile. Emmett’s juvenile criminal record had been destroyed pursuant to North Carolina procedure, and defense counsel intentionally avoided opening the door to Emmett’s extensive juvenile criminal history. The history presented consisted of juvenile convictions for felonious larceny and for assault and battery arising from an incident in which Emmett, while incarcerated in a maximum-security juvenile detention facility, rushed a guard and locked him in a closet in order to escape. In addition, the prosecutor presented evidence of an adult conviction for involuntary manslaughter arising from an incident in which Emmett, while driving a van in the wrong direction and under the influence of alcohol, struck and killed a motorcyclist. Testimony was presented that the drunken Emmett was smiling after the driver was killed and told an officer "‘that there was no need to worry about the man on the motorcycle. He was already dead, and that he, (Emmett) could do nothing to help him.’" As noted by the state court, the evidence showed that Emmett lacked remorse for this earlier violent crime and for the current case of killing a coworker. Indeed, Emmett himself confessed that he killed Langley simply because it "just seemed right at the time." Such lack of regard for a human life speaks volumes on the issue of future dangerousness and leaves little doubt of its probability. In support of the vileness factor, the prosecutor highlighted to the jury the aggravated nature of the beating that Emmett inflicted upon his victim. As noted by the state court, Emmett’s actions demonstrated both aggravated battery and depravity of mind. Specifically, "the use of a blunt object to batter the skull of the victim repeatedly and with such force that blood spatters several feet from the victim is clearly both qualitatively and quantitatively more force than the minimum necessary to kill the victim." Additionally, "the evidence established that Emmett violently attacked a co-worker with whom he had apparently enjoyed an amicable relationship. The brutality of the crime amply demonstrates the depravity of mind involved in the murder of Langley."

On the morning of January 21, 1994, the parents of Brandon Baugh delivered their three-month-old baby to Cathy Lynn Henderson, the infant’s daily caregiver, at Henderson’s home near Austin, Texas. Tragically, Brandon died of massive head trauma later that day when, according to Henderson, he fell from her arms and struck his head upon the concrete floor of the home. Henderson had nursing experience, but when her efforts to provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation did not succeed, Henderson panicked, buried the infant’s body near Waco, and fled to Missouri. On February 1, 1994, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Henderson in Kansas City on federal and Texas kidnapping warrants. F.B.I. Special Agent Michael Napier promptly initiated custodial interrogation, beginning with the familiar Miranda warning. Henderson first denied knowledge of the child's whereabouts and stated that she had left him with his grandmother, but the Agent persisted and later, through leading questions, Napier elicited from Henderson a confession that she killed the baby. He asked her, “When you say the whole thing, are you talking about that Brandon is dead, that you know where the body’s located, that it was an accident, that you’re sorry? She responded by nodding her head. Later, Napier said, “Brandon’s dead. It was an accident.” To this statement, Henderson replied, “Yes.” Napier asked, “Did you bury him?” She responded, “Of course I did. He’s just a baby.” Henderson Agent Napier then asked Henderson to sign a written statement, to tell him the specific location of the infant’s gravesite, and to draw a map depicting that location. The Agent’s persistence doubtless brought home to Henderson both the seriousness of her circumstances and the significance of the Miranda admonition he had delivered only moments before. Henderson therefore refused to sign any statement, refused to disclose the location of the gravesite, refused to draw the map requested by Agent Napier, and asked instead for the assistance of an attorney. Napier then terminated his interrogation. Henderson then met with Assistant Federal Public Defender Ronald Hall, the attorney initially provided in response to her request for the guiding hand of counsel. She spoke with him privately and in confidence, telling Hall where she had buried the body of Brandon Baugh, and drawing for Hall a sketch-map of that location as a means of reducing her words to paper. After Henderson agreed to extradition to Texas, attorney Hall sent the map and other confidential information to a Texas attorney, Nona Byington, who agreed to represent Henderson until the State court appointed a criminal law specialist to assume Henderson’s defense. After State officials learned that Henderson had exercised her Miranda rights and refused to draw a map for Agent Napier, but that attorney Byington now had the map drawn for attorney Hall, they turned the heat upon Ms. Byington. A grand jury subpoenaed Byington, and the local Sheriff demanded that she hand over the map. When Ms. Byington refused, the Sheriff had her arrested on a charge of “tampering with evidence,” and his officers searched her office and automobile, albeit to no immediate avail. The Sheriff also defamed Ms. Byington to an eager press, labeling her an “accomplice to an ongoing crime.” This whipped-up public frenzy well summarized in THE TEXAS LAWYER’S edition of February 14, 1994: Anyone listening to the radio call-in shows in Austin recently had no doubt who was the most hated lawyer in central Texas. Austin’s Nona Byington, three years out of law school and representing a woman accused of abducting a missing 3-month-old boy, endured five days of vilification for refusing to give authorities the maps her client had drawn showing the location of the infant’s body. On February 7, 1994, the grand jury issued another subpoena demanding that Ms. Byington relinquish her client’s map. But the hated and vilified Ms. Byington continued to stand her ground; she refused to comply, asserting the confidentiality of the privileged communications and her client’s rights under the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments. The State immediately sought a court order compelling attorney Byington to surrender the map, on pain of jail if she refused. An evidentiary hearing on the State’s motion was held the same day. Consistent with the Sheriff’s inflammatory defamations, the State chiefly argued that by withholding the map, attorney Byington was facilitating the “ongoing crime” of kidnapping, and that the crime-fraud exception to the attorney client privilege therefore trumped Henderson’s assertion of the privilege. However, after considering all the evidence presented to him at the hearing, the presiding judge rejected the “ongoing kidnapping” argument, saying, “I’m convinced that the child is deceased, and since I’m convinced the child is deceased, I really don’t see how it can be an ongoing crime.” The next morning (February 8, 1994), however, the judge nevertheless ordered Ms. Byington to surrender the map, saying that the map was not a confidential communication because, at the time she prepared it for attorney Hall, Henderson harbored the subjective intent of assisting the authorities in locating the infant’s body. Ms. Byington reluctantly capitulated to the court’s order and, using the seized map, State authorities located the body of Brandon Baugh on the evening of February 8. On February 9, 1994 the State charged Henderson with the capital murder of Brandon Baugh. Before trial, the same judge revisited his ruling of February 8, this time under a defense motion to suppress the evidence to which the seized map had led the State. The motion was denied on the same ground of nonconfidentiality, and also upon the ground that the crime-fraud exception to the attorney client privilege nullified Ms. Byington’s refusal to betray her client’s confidences. The judge ignored his prior finding that the child was dead, and revived the “ongoing kidnapping” rationale that he refused to invoke at the hearing on February 7-8, 1994. He then added that if the child were dead, the crime-fraud exception for “abuse of corpse” came into play. Trial was held in May 1995, and the jury convicted Henderson on the sole charge of capital murder of an infant, in violation of TEXAS PENAL CODE § 19.03(a)(8).5 The State’s chief evidence was of Henderson’s flight to Missouri after the infant died, her burial of the body instead of informing authorities of the death, and the testimony of the County Medical Examiner, who opined that the head trauma sustained by the infant was greater than one might expect had he simply fallen from Henderson’s arms to the floor of her home.

Wayne Cordell Mitchell and Robin Little met and began dating while the two were students at Schenley High School in Pittsburgh. Entries from Robin’s diary, which were admitted at trial over Mitchell’s objections, chronicled their volatile relationship and Mitchell’s violent behavior toward her. Mitchell and Robin often argued and, in September 1996, Mitchell threatened to kill her, if she ever left him. The couple’s son Malik was born in January 1997, and the two were married in April 1997, when Robin was eighteen and Mitchell was nineteen. Notwithstanding the marriage, Robin continued to live apart from Mitchell with her mother, Debra King, on Hamilton Avenue in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, until Mitchell came to stay with them in the late spring of 1997. Mrs. King testified that she often heard Robin arguing with Mitchell on the phone about his drinking, smoking, and failure to get a job, as well as the lack of time he spent with the baby and her. Mrs. King testified that in June 1997, she came home to discover holes in the wall of her living room. Robin told her that Mitchell and she had gotten into a fight and that he had punched the wall. Fearing further violence, Robin ended the relationship in July 1997, telling Mitchell to leave. That same month, Robin took Malik and moved to her brother’s home in Lancaster. During that time, Robin told her sister-in-law, Timberlin King, that she feared Mitchell, and believed that one day he would kill her. Because she was homesick, however, Robin returned to Pittsburgh in August 1997, and moved back into her mother’s Hamilton Avenue home. On September 1, 1997, Mitchell was working at the People’s Natural Gas Company near Robin’s home when he telephoned her. During their conversation, Robin asked to use Mitchell’s bus pass. He told her that she could use it, but had to come to People’s to get it. After her arrival at People’s, the two began discussing a man named Brian, whom Robin was seeing. Robin told Mitchell that she and Brian had engaged in sexual relations. Mitchell became angry and dragged Robin into a supervisor’s office and raped her. As Robin screamed and begged him to stop, he threatened that if she continued screaming or told anyone about the rape, he would “snap her neck.” Mitchell finally let Robin go and returned to work. Later that evening, Mrs. King drove Robin to the Pittsburgh Zone 5 Police Station where she reported the attack. Mrs. King then took Robin to Magee Women’s Hospital for an examination. Hospital personnel prepared a rape kit, and when Robin returned home, her mother took pictures of the bruises on her arms and thighs. While Robin was at the hospital, the police went to Mitchell’s address and arrested him. After waiving his Miranda rights, Mitchell agreed to have his statement taped and admitted to Wilkinsburg Police Detective Doug Yuhouse that he had raped Robin. Although Robin initially reported the rape to the Pittsburgh Police, it was later determined that the incident occurred just outside the city-limits of Pittsburgh in neighboring Wilkinsburg. Therefore, the rape investigation was turned over to the Wilkinsburg Police. Detective Yuhouse noted that Mitchell was cooperative and did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol when he made his taped confession. Mitchell was charged with rape, terroristic threats, unlawful restraint, and simple assault for the September 1 attack on his estranged wife. He was arraigned and remained in jail pending a preliminary hearing, which was scheduled for September 9, 1997. On September 4, 1997, while Mitchell was still in jail awaiting his preliminary hearing, Robin filed for a Protection from Abuse (PFA) order. The court granted her petition entering a ten-day temporary order directing that Mitchell have no contact with Robin pending a full hearing on the matter, which was scheduled for September 10, 1997. Upset over what was happening, Mitchell called Sheila Britton, the former director of a college-counseling program at Schenley High School, where both he and Robin attended. Mitchell first met Ms. Britton through school, and remained in contact with her even after Mitchell transferred out of Schenley and Ms. Britton was no longer employed by the Pittsburgh School Board. After graduation, Mitchell had several conversations with Ms. Britton, and she was aware of the couple’s problems. In fact, Mitchell called Ms. Britton from jail after he was arrested for raping Robin on September 1, 1997. Robin also called Ms. Britton prior to the preliminary hearing to ask for advice on whether she should drop the charges. Robin told Ms. Britton that she was afraid Mitchell would retaliate if she pursued a PFA order against him. At the trial of this case, the court allowed Ms. Britton’s testimony concerning her conversations with both Robin and Mitchell over the defense’s objection that they were privileged communications. Mitchell remained in jail on the rape charges until his scheduled preliminary hearing on September 9, 1997. At that hearing, Mitchell waived the charges to court in exchange for a nominal bond, with a condition that he seek immediate in-patient treatment for alcohol abuse at St. Francis Hospital. Mitchell signed the right-to-preliminary-hearing waiver form and his next court appearance was scheduled for October 27, 1997. Robin and her mother were present at the preliminary hearing and thus aware of this arrangement. Robin agreed believing that Mitchell’s hospitalization would protect her from him. At trial, the defense claimed that Mitchell reported to St. Francis as required, but was immediately released; whereas the Commonwealth claimed that he never reported to the hospital. Regardless, Mitchell was never admitted to the hospital for treatment on September 9, 1997 as required by the agreement. Instead, he went home and began calling Robin. During the afternoon of September 9, 1997, Robin reported to her mother that Mitchell was out of jail, that he was never admitted to the hospital for alcohol treatment, and that he had called her several times. Mitchell continued to call until he convinced Robin to allow him come to her home. After his arrival at 4:15 p.m., the conversation quickly turned to Brian, the man Robin was seeing. Mitchell became angry when Robin indicated that Brian was better than Mitchell. The couple argued until Mitchell left the home shortly after 6:00 p.m. Mitchell later confessed to Detective Dennis Logan that he went out that evening with friends and had “a couple of drinks.” At some point during the evening, he called Robin and continued to argue with her over the phone. When he returned home at 1:00 a.m. on September 10, 1997, Mitchell called Robin, apologized, and convinced her to let him come to her home again, so that they could talk about their son. Mitchell called Ms. Britton at approximately 1:00 a.m. and angrily told her several times that he was going to Robin’s house to kill her. He said Robin had “disrespected” him and he repeated his threat several more times even though Ms. Britton told him that going after Robin would not resolve anything. Mitchell replied that he was going to dress in black, go to Robin’s home, and “do what he had to do.” Ms. Britton told Mitchell just to go to bed. When he abruptly ended the conversation and hung up, she tried to call back, but Mitchell’s mother answered. When Ms. Britton explained why she was calling Mitchell, his mother dismissed her concerns and told her that she did not have time to worry about it, so Ms. Britton gave up. Ms. Britton could not call Robin because she did not have her number. At trial, Ms. Britton testified that during her conversation with Mitchell, he did not slur any of his words and he spoke in coherent sentences. Mitchell later told Detective Logan that instead of going to bed, he walked to Robin’s home. When he arrived at 1:30 a.m., Robin was sitting on the porch with a man who quickly left after Mitchell said, “Who the f--k is this?” Mitchell argued again with Robin about her seeing anyone else. He punched Robin in the face and stomach, causing her to fall against the door. When she tried to run, Mitchell grabbed her and said he would stop hitting her if she walked with him. When she resisted, Mitchell dragged her toward an empty lot near her home and continued to punch her as she tried to break free. At that point, Robin screamed for help, yelling, “He’s going to kill me.” Mitchell put a hand over Robin’s mouth and continued to drag her. As they passed a house, Mitchell saw a knife lying on a porch. At first, he walked past the house, but then stopped and punched Robin several more times, temporarily disabling her while he returned to the porch to get the knife. When Robin attempted to pull herself up off the ground, Mitchell pushed her down and stabbed her in the stomach. Then, Mitchell removed Robin’s clothes, wrapped his hands around her neck, and raped her, first vaginally and then anally. When Robin vomited blood, Mitchell wiped her mouth with a rag and continued raping her. When he finished, he turned her over and stabbed her multiple times in the neck. Mitchell then took Robin’s clothing, the knife, and the bloody rag, and threw them into a sewer on nearby Kelly Street. He later remarked to Detective Logan that because he had worked as a security guard, he knew not to leave behind any evidence. He also explained that he left her body naked because “if she wanted to f--k everybody, now everybody could see her f--king body.” Mitchell called Ms. Britton again at 4:00 a.m. When she asked about Robin, he told her, “Robin Little is no more.” He also told Ms. Britton that he was going to his uncle’s home so that he could establish an alibi, and that he planned to appear at the PFA hearing as scheduled, knowing that she would not be there. In his confession to Detective Logan, Mitchell never mentioned his phone call with Ms. Britton, but instead indicated that he immediately went to bed upon returning home. Mitchell admitted, however, that when he got up later that morning, he took the clothes he had been wearing, including a black Steelers’ football shirt, black pants, a black tank top and black boots, put them in a garbage bag, and threw them into an abandoned house. Mitchell then went to court for his final PFA hearing. At 9:00 a.m., Mitchell appeared in court for the hearing, but when Robin did not appear, the court dismissed the temporary PFA order. When Mitchell returned home, his mother told him that Robin was found dead. He later confessed to Detective Logan that he tried to act surprised and denied any involvement, but his mother was concerned and insisted that he go to St. Francis Hospital. That same morning, Mrs. King was worried when she discovered that Robin was not home. After searching outside and becoming even more upset, she contacted police and explained the situation between Robin and Mitchell. At approximately 10:00 a.m., an officer arrived at her home to take a report. Mrs. King was still talking to police, at 10:15 a.m., when the fire station located a block down the street from Mrs. King’s home received a call that a woman’s body was discovered in a nearby backyard. Several firefighters walked to the lot and saw the victim’s naked body lying face-up in the weeds. When Mrs. King saw the police car and an ambulance arrive, she ran to the vacant lot to find her daughter’s body. Police later discovered Robin’s clothes in a sewer a few blocks away. Mitchell’s clothing was recovered from a vacant house in a nearby neighborhood. In the meantime, Mitchell took his mother’s advice and went to St. Francis Hospital sometime around noon on September 10, 1997. As soon as Robin’s body was discovered, homicide detectives began looking for Mitchell and learned that he was at St. Francis Hospital. The police went to St. Francis’ emergency room, where they were informed that Mitchell was being evaluated and that they could wait for him. When Mitchell was released fifteen or twenty minutes later, the detectives approached him in the waiting area and asked him if he would accompany them to their office. Mitchell agreed. He drove with detectives to the homicide offices where he made a full statement to Detective Logan admitting that he raped Robin Little on September 1, 1997, and that he raped her again and murdered her on September 10, 1997. Detective Logan noted that Mitchell appeared in full control of his faculties and provided a remarkably detailed account of his turbulent relationship with Robin, as well as a full explanation of how and why he raped her twice and then murdered her. Mitchell was charged with rape, terroristic threats, unlawful restraint, and simple assault for the September 1 sexual assault of Robin Little. Mitchell then was charged with rape, IDSI, and unlawful restraint for the September 10 attack of the same victim. Finally, Mitchell was charged with one count of criminal homicide for the September 10 strangulation and stabbing death of Robin Little. The Commonwealth then filed and served a timely notice of its intention to seek imposition of the death penalty. Mitchell filed several pre-trial motions, including a motion to suppress his statements to police and a motion to sever the informations. Hearings were held on these motions from September 27 to October 1, 1999. The only witness to testify at the suppression hearing was Detective Logan. Following completion of the proceedings, the court denied Mitchell’s suppression motion and his motion for severance. On October 1, 1999, Mitchell appeared before the trial court and pleaded guilty to the rape, IDSI and unlawful restraint counts arising from the September 10 sexual assault. The court deferred imposition of sentence until after trial on the remaining charges, which commenced before a jury on October 4, 1999. At trial, the Commonwealth presented evidence from a number of witnesses. Robin’s mother testified about the couple’s tumultuous relationship and read excerpts from Robin’s diary. Robin’s sister-in-law from Lancaster testified that Robin lived with her temporarily to get away from Mitchell. Ms. Britton offered a timeline of the events of September 9 to 10, and told about her conversations with Mitchell before and after the killing. The Commonwealth also presented testimony from the doctor who examined Robin after the first rape, the nurse who prepared the rape kit, the police officer who took the initial report after the first rape, the police officer who took Mitchell’s first confession to the September 1 rape, and court personnel who explained that the PFA order was in effect when Robin was attacked and murdered. Additionally, the Commonwealth offered testimony from a firefighter who initially found Robin’s body, police who investigated the murder scene, and Detective Logan, who took Mitchell’s confession to both rapes and the murder. Finally, the Commonwealth presented testimony from Dr. Leon Rozin, the Chief Forensic Pathologist from the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office, who concluded that the cause of death was multiple stab wounds to the neck, as well as compression of the neck, more commonly referred to as strangulation, and the manner of death was criminal homicide. At the close of trial, the jury found Mitchell guilty of first-degree murder as well as the remaining charges of rape, unlawful restraint and simple assault. Accordingly, as the Commonwealth was seeking the death penalty, the jury remained empanelled for a separate penalty phase hearing. On October 13, 1999, after hearing additional testimony, argument from both the defense counsel and prosecutor, and instructions from the trial court, the same jury unanimously found two aggravating circumstances: Mitchell committed the killing while in the perpetration of a felony (rape) and Mitchell was subject to a PFA order restricting his contact with the victim when he killed her.9 The jury found no mitigating circumstances. Consequently, the jury sentenced Mitchell to death. On December 8, 1999, the trial court imposed a sentence of death for the first degree murder conviction and consecutive terms of eight and one-half to twenty years of imprisonment for the September 1 rape, two and one-half to five years for unlawful restraint and one to two years for simple assault.

As background, in July 2002 Ernest R. Wholaver, Jr. was charged with multiple sexual offenses for alleged conduct involving his two daughters, Victoria and Elizabeth, the latter of whom was still a minor at the time the charges were lodged. On behalf of Elizabeth, Wholaver’s wife, Jean Wholaver, obtained an order under the Protection From Abuse Act which included provisos that Wholaver was evicted from the family’s Middletown residence, with no right or privilege of entry, and was prohibited from possessing or acquiring firearms. Wholaver subsequently took up residence with his mother, father, and younger brother, Scott Wholaver, in Cambria County. Just after midnight on December 24, 2002, Wholaver set out for the Middletown residence with Scott Wholaver. While his brother waited in the vehicle about a block away, Wholaver approached the house; cut telephone and other wires leading to it; forcibly gained entry; and shot Jean, Victoria, and Elizabeth to death with a pistol, leaving Victoria’s nine-month-old girl, Madison, alive but alone and unattended. Wholaver and his brother then drove to Clearfield County, where Wholaver discarded the pistol, a shotgun, and other potentially incriminating items at a remote location. Following the discovery of the bodies and Madison (who survived) approximately twenty-eight hours after the killings, police obtained search warrants for the Middletown residence to gather evidence. They later executed warrants to search Wholaver’s person, his vehicle, and the Cambria County home where he was living. Wholaver was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder, and the Commonwealth furnished notice that it intended to pursue imposition of the death penalty. Prior to trial, Scott Wholaver pled guilty to third-degree murder and agreed to cooperate as a Commonwealth witness. He led police to the Clearfield County location, from where they retrieved the firearms and other evidence. Also before trial, the prior sexual offense charges were consolidated with the murder cases. Wholaver secured a change of venire, in light of pre-trial publicity. At trial, the Commonwealth presented Scott Wholaver as a central witness. He testified that, following Jean Wholaver’s decision to seek a divorce, Wholaver stated that he would shoot her. He then described the brothers’ nocturnal trip to the Middletown residence on December 24th, indicating that Wholaver had claimed that he wished only to retrieve his dog. The trip involved furtive activities and was corroborated by a surveillance video obtained by police from a convenience store located mid-way between Cambria County and Middletown. Scott Wholaver testified that, upon arrival in Middletown, he was told to stop the vehicle to permit Wholaver to access the rear seat; Wholaver then directed him to proceed to a location about a block from the Wholaver residence; he parked the vehicle there and waited as Wholaver proceeded toward the residence; Wholaver returned five to ten minutes later appearing shaken; Wholaver instructed him to drive to the remote Clearfield County location where he saw the shotgun in the rear of the vehicle and watched Wholaver shuttle from the vehicle to the woods; and Wholaver told him to repeat a false story if asked about his whereabouts during the time period spanning these activities. The Commonwealth also offered testimony from several prisoner-witnesses, who described various incriminatory statements by Wholaver, as well as evidence of Wholaver’s jail-based efforts to hire a West Virginia man to kill the father of Victoria’s child, Francisco Ramos, and to fabricate evidence suggesting that Mr. Ramos had killed Jean, Victoria, and Elizabeth Wholaver. A prisoner-witness involved police at an early stage in these efforts, and undercover officers documented Wholaver’s subsequent solicitation attempts. This conduct was acknowledged by the defense in closing argument, where Wholaver’s trial counsel suggested that the attempt reflected only an effort by a distraught husband and father to avenge the killing of his family against the man that he believed was the perpetrator. Parenthetically, the defense theory of the case recognized that Mr. Ramos was not the killer but asserted that another man, who had also been intimately associated with Victoria, had perpetrated the murders. Ballistics evidence was presented to connect the pistol found in Clearfield County to the killings (although the association could not be made firmly, because both the firearm and bullets were degraded). Further, the Commonwealth presented evidence that the pistol was registered to Wholaver’s uncle. The Commonwealth also introduced the preliminary hearing testimony of Elizabeth and Victoria Wholaver from the sexual assault case under the forfeiture-by-wrongdoing exception to the hearsay rule, on the theory that they were killed to prevent their testimony. Wholaver was convicted of first-degree murder pertaining to each of the killings, and of the separate crimes of killing prosecution witnesses, conspiracy, reckless endangerment (of Madison), burglary, and criminal solicitation related to his attempt to have Mr. Ramos killed. He was acquitted of the sexual offenses, however. In the penalty phase of the trial, the Commonwealth pursued the in-perpetration-of-a-felony, grave-risk, multiple-murders, and protection-from-abuse-violation aggravators, incorporating the evidence adduced in the guilt phase. Wholaver pursued the no-significant-history-of-prior-criminal-convictions and catch-all mitigators. The jury found all of the aggravators, at least some of the jurors accepted Wholaver’s proffered mitigators, and the jurors unanimously returned three death sentences as a consequence of their individual weighing determinations.

John Hightower was married to Dorothy Hightower. Her brother stopped by their home early in the morning of July 12, 1987, to pick up his daughter. Dorothy Hightower’s car was gone. The brother entered the home and found that Dorothy Hightower and her two daughters, Evelyn and Sandra Reaves, had been shot. Evelyn Reaves was still alive, but died two days later. Sandra Reaves and Dorothy Hightower were dead. The brother’s daughter was unharmed. Two and one-half hours later, Hightower was arrested driving his wife’s car. Inside the car was a bloody handgun. He confessed later that morning. He told police that he and his wife had been having marital problems, and he had purchased the murder weapon the day before. He hid it under his pillow until 3:00 a.m., when he shot his wife. He then went to the bedroom occupied by his stepdaughter Sandra Reaves. She got out of bed, but then
lay back down. He shot her in the head. Evelyn Reaves tried to leave the house, but Hightower caught her and shot her three times. UPDATE: Before being executed by lethal injection, John Hightower made a brief final statement in which he said he apologized to the victims' family and asked for their forgiveness. "I want to say that I'm sorry for the grief I brought to the Reaves family," he said. He also thanked his family and friends for their support over the years. "Last but not least, I thank my mother for being by me for so long," Hightower said. He declined a final prayer. His pastor, a friend and a paralegal were the only witnesses for him who attended the execution. There were no witnesses from his wife's family. Earlier Tuesday, he recorded a statement for prison officials in which he apologized for his crime and said he loved his wife then and still does.