THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230321
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
A Navy signalman convicted in November of the 1992 murder of a 21-year-old Scottish immigrant was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison.
On Nov. 28, Ernest Blackwell, 23, pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Holly Stirling in East Ocean View in September 1992.
Blackwell entered an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to admit no guilt but concedes that the evidence was sufficient to win a conviction.
Blackwell also was charged with statutory burglary, but that charge was dropped during Wednesday's hearing in Circuit Court. Blackwell faced a maximum sentence of 20 years on the murder charge.
Although he maintained his innocence even after pleading guilty, police and prosecutors said Blackwell strangled Stirling with a knotted cord after learning she was engaged to another sailor.
He apparently had sex with her once, then become obsessed with the young woman.
Blackwell was arrested six months after Stirling's body was found in her second-story apartment in Ocean View.
Although police investigated several suspects, detectives were aware of Blackwell nearly from the beginning after finding an angry note from Stirling to him, telling him to stop breaking into her apartment on 16th Bay Street.
On March 11, 1993, after three interviews and a failed polygraph examination, Blackwell admitted killing Stirling, court records show. ``It was an accident,'' he said in a confused statement. ``It was an accident.''
``Tell us how it became an accident,'' detectives asked.
``I'm not going to lie anymore,'' he answered. ``I didn't kill the girl. She's not dead. She's not dead.''
KEYWORDS: MURDER by CNB