Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 1, 1995 TAG: 9508020003
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In a handwritten letter to his brother, Robert M. May bragged about killing five people in an Old Southwest carriage house early New Year's Day, saying he wanted to capitalize on the event.
And, he told his brother, he could kill again.
The letter was read Monday in Roanoke Circuit Court as part of the prosecution's evidence against May. Five weeks after the slayings, the letter depicted a young man of little remorse who believed at least three of the victims deserved to die.
"If I can live with killing five people I can live with killing more, hopefully that won't happen for their sake," he wrote in the February letter.
"As for money bro, I'm set," May continued. "You need yours for yourself besides by the time I write my book I'll be set for life. ... I've got every reporter for TV and newspaper around hounding me for an interview so when my attornies give me the green light it will go to the highest bidder. Hell, I'm waiting for Geraldo and ... Oprah to be getting in touch sooner or later. ... Americans love to cash in on death and I'm willing to take their money."
May, 27, confessed to the slayings of three men and two women when he was arrested 12 hours after the crime. Friday he pleaded no contest to capital murder and related charges in the deaths of Dale Arnold, 36; Carl Stroop, 42; Daniel Mason, 47; Cynthia LaPrade, 43; and Susan Hutchinson, 44.
With his no contest plea - which does not admit guilt, but acknowledges that there is enough evidence for a conviction - he placed his fate in the hands of Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein.
After hearing the prosecution's evidence, Weckstein will decide whether to accept May's plea. Then Weckstein will hear additional testimony before sentencing May to either life in prison or death.
So many relatives of the victims filled the gallery Monday, Weckstein switched the location of the proceedings to a larger courtroom. At times the family members stared intently at May.
But May showed only glimpses of emotion throughout the day of testimony. The 27-year-old house painter closed his eyes when prosecutors played an audio tape of his confession. He lowered his head when they showed a videotape of the crime scene that focused on the bodies of the five victims.
Prosecutors gnawed away at the image May had created for himself: an alcoholic who began his rampage only after one of the victims pulled a gun on him.
May's version begins late New Year's Eve as he helped a drunken friend into bed. When May saw the friend had a gun, he took it so his friend would not hurt himself, according to statements he made to police.
But witnesses testified that May's friend warned him not to play with the gun. They said that May at first talked about being a nonviolent person, then talked about "capping people" with the gun and tried to goad his drunken friend to come with him.
May left his friend's house and soon afterward was beckoned to the party at his neighbors' carriage house. He went to the apartment at 913 4 1/2 Street S.W., carrying his friend's gun in his pants. May said he had some beer and champagne earlier in the night and was tempted by the offer to polish off some liquor.
Once inside the carriage house, May said the three men began arguing about which branch of the military was better, the Navy or the Marines. As the squabble escalated, one of the men grabbed May, sticking a gun in his face, according to May's account.
May pulled his friend's gun. First he shot Stroop, then another of the men. Finally, he said, he shot the third man when the man came at him with a knife.
May fled the apartment, but returned within moments when he realized two women in the living room could identify him. He shot them in the head.
"I've killed five people three of [them] deserved and the other two weigh heavy on my soul but like anything else you learn to deal with it. ... The [women] were just in the wrong place at the wrong time," he wrote to his brother in the February letter.
But the videotape of the crime scene did not appear to support May's story. Monday, the taped sequence took the courtroom spectators on a graphic tour of the tiny apartment, where the bodies of the three men laid on top of each other in the cramped kitchen.
There were signs of a struggle - the refrigerator had been moved to the center of the floor, blood was caked onto the linoleum, and a bloody palm print was on one of the door jambs. The print was identified as May's, according to testimony.
Police never found the second gun that May said was put in his face. Investigators did find two knives, but neither had been taken out of its sheath. Stroop had a knife tucked in his pants; Arnold had a knife strapped to his belt.
Hutchinson's body was found on a couch in the living room, her legs and arms crossed as if she had been at rest. LaPrade's body was slumped on a chair.
As the videotape zoomed in on LaPrade's injury - a bullet wound to the right side of her head - her daughter spoke up in the courtroom, saying to May, "Be sure to look."
Weckstein is to hear more prosecution testimony today.
May appears to have prepared himself for prison or worse. In the letter to his brother, he told of resigning himself to a life without freedom and finding an inner calm after years of being angry at the world.
"The fact is I killed five people and will probably get the chair, if not, I know I'll never be free again, but I'm not worried about what any man on this world can do to me only when I die and stand tall before the man."
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