ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 TAG: 9701280050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on January 29, 1997.
Micah Hunt is the owner of General Imports Automotive and a former
co-worker of Christopher Wilson, who was murdered last January at the
Brambleton Avenue shop. She was incorrectly identified in Tuesday's
story about Wilson's killer. At the time of the murder, General Imports
Sales and Service Inc., now based on Franklin Road, owned the garage.
AFTER TELLING the judge how sorry he is for beating a man to death, Saul was spared the two life sentences he could have faced.
Christopher Saul choked back tears after listening to his parents beg for his life. Then, he made his own pleas to a Roanoke County circuit judge.
"I'm very sorry for the pain [the victim's] family is going through," Saul told Judge Roy Willett on Monday. "I know it must be hard because it's hard on my family. ... I ask that you don't take a hope, my hope, of being a father to my kids someday."
Saul, a father of twin boys, collapsed into a sob. His attorney held the 20-year-old man by the arm and brought him to his feet.
Willett spared Saul the two life terms he faced for beating to death, then robbing, a 26-year-old auto mechanic on New Year's Day in 1996. Willett sentenced Saul to 42 years in prison. Under Virginia's no-parole law, Saul will serve at least 35 years of his sentence.
"There's no way I can undo what you did to your family or these people," Willett told Saul. "When I hear the words, `What I did was wrong,' ... [they are] so insignificant, so pale, from describing what happened."
Exactly what caused Saul to beat Christopher Wilson was not resolved Monday. Prosecutors say Saul needed a car and saw Wilson as an easy victim. But Saul's defense team contended that Wilson made a sexual advance and that Saul reacted uncontrollably.
First, he picked up a wrench and repeatedly bashed Wilson in the face. Then, he took a metal hood jack and hit Wilson in his body with so much force it ruptured internal organs, according to testimony.
Saul then stole Wilson's car, driving to a friend's house in Moneta, and on to a New Year's party in Roanoke. He tried to make a withdrawal at an ATM machine with Wilson's bank card but was unsuccessful.
Wilson's body was discovered Jan.2, 1996, by his co-workers at General Imports Sales & Service on Brambleton Avenue. On Jan.4, police found Wilson's silver-and-black car on the 2100 block of Bennington Street Southeast, just 200 yards from Saul's home. Two days later, after a friend implicated Saul in the murder, he was arrested.
In November, he pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and robbery, skirting a possible death sentence.
On Monday, he wept as his parents told of his troubled childhood and implored the judge for leniency.
"I feel so sorry for" the Wilsons, Christopher Saul's father, James Saul testified in court. "I can't stand it. But I'm going through turmoil now. He's being made to be like some kind of monster. But he's not. He's not a monster. ask you that you have a little mercy on him. He's the only son I've got."
Defense character witnesses depicted Saul as a young man beset with a learning disability who never displayed any violent actions before Wilson's murder. Prosecutors portrayed Saul as a man who gave in easily to his anger, citing as an example a recent disturbance in the Roanoke County-Salem Jail in which Saul was pegged as one of the leaders.
"When Mr. Saul took my son's life, he also took a part of my family's life," said Wilson's mother, Mary Wilson. "My family has been sentenced to a life in pain."
After Monday's hearing, Micah Hunt, Wilson's boss and owner of General Imports Sales & Service, described Saul's case as a no-win situation.
"Chris [Wilson] is dead. Christopher Saul has ruined his life," she said. "So there's no justice."
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY STAFF. Christopher Saul stands in court whileby CNBlistening to Judge Willett give his sentence for murder in Roanoke
County Circuit Court in Salem on Monday. Saul will be required to
serve at least 35 years of his sentence under Virginia's no-parole
law. color. KEYWORDS: ROMUR