THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 17, 1995 TAG: 9507130502
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Inside the Witchduck Inn Murders
Case No. 94-038721
Part II
SOURCE: [Mike Mather]
LENGTH: Long : 585 lines
Homicide detectives share a common fear: The case they've just been assigned will never be solved. The killer will roam free, perhaps to kill again, and the open case file will hang over their careers, taunting them, like Coleridge's albatross.
Nineteen hours into the investigation of Virginia Beach's first mass murder the detectives were too busy to worry much about career impact. But the lack of solid information was beginning to frustrate them. Wired on too much coffee and too little sleep, they took stock: Four bodies, the bullets that killed them, and a horrid mess of blood at little blue-collar bar called the Witchduck Inn.
Quickly, though, things began to mesh. A caller provided critical information and the names of two people whose actions after the massacre already had made the detectives suspicious. Now they had reason to believe those two were involved. A search was on through a network of suburban watering holes and apartment complexes the two were known to frequent.
Observing all this were Virginian-Pilot police reporter Mike Mather and photographer Lawrence Jackson. Before they killings they had carefully negotiated an agreement to be allowed to follow detectives through a murder investigation. They had no idea it would draw them into what was, at the time, the most brutal crime in the history of Virginia Beach.
Mather's only restriction was that he not publish a story until the killers were convicted. With the guilty verdict against Michael Clagett and the earlier conviction of his accomplice, Denise Holsinger, the case file is closed. Its brutality, though, still haunts many of the investigators and the families of the four victims.
Part One, detailing the crime and its immediate aftermath, was published yesterday. Part Two follows the relentless pursuit of of the Witchduck Inn killers.
THE SEARCH
Inside Miss Kitty's Village Inn, another bar owned by the slain Lam Van Son, Denise Holsinger is drinking $3.50 white Russians and crying over the murder of her former boss.
During a television newscast, video of the Witchduck Inn parking lot flickers across the bar's TV.
``Dibs on the son of a bitch that did that,'' Holsinger says to anyone in earshot.
Outside, Detective Darrell Jackson's unmarked police car pulls into the parking lot. He's been assigned to interview bar employees.
Jackson, a linebacker-sized homicide investigator with thinning black hair and gold-framed glasses, walks inside.
Holsinger is finishing her creamy drink. Michael Clagett, her boyfriend, is with her.
Jackson doesn't yet know finding the couple has suddenly become the detectives' top priority. He strolls past the pair.
In an earlier phone tip, Holsinger's name surfaced for the third time in the still-young investigation. Yoakam tracked down the caller. The information the caller gave jump-started the stalling case.
The caller was at a barbeque at a home in the Lake Placid subdivision on June 30, he told Yoakam. Michael Clagett and Denise Holsinger were also there.
At 10 p.m., after an evening of drinking, Clagett and Holsinger left in her car. They said they were going to the Witchduck Inn for a drink. They had a gun.
That means the detectives can put two people and a gun at the bar within a couple hours of the murders.
And not just any two people.
Holsinger had been fired from the bar. Detective John Orr talked to her earlier in the day, and he sensed the woman was overreacting. Her boyfriend, Clagett, is a felon who lives less than a block from the tavern.
The pieces are falling into place.
``We have to find them,'' Detective Shawn Hoffman said.
But now, at Miss Kitty's Village Inn, Jackson knows none of that.
He asks the female bartender to step outside. They climb into Jackson's car. Moments later, the cellular phone rings.
It's Hoffman.
``Ask her if she knows Denise Holsinger,'' Hoffman says to Jackson.
``Yes, I do,'' the bartender answers, pointing into the parking lot. ``That's her leaving in the car.''
Holsinger's 1986 Nissan eases onto Witchduck Road as Hoffman asks Jackson to follow. Jackson throws his car into gear with the bartender still in the passenger seat, but he loses the Nissan in traffic.
Hoffman's still on the phone.
``Ask her if she knows where Michael Clagett is.''
``He's in the bar,'' the bartender says.
Jackson speeds back to Miss Kitty's and hatches a plan. He will send in the bartender. She will walk past Clagett and stand behind him. Then Jackson will know who he is.
The bartender walks inside with Jackson just behind her. She scans the room for Clagett.
He's gone.
Now, every available patrol officer and detective is searching for Holsinger's boyfriend, and Holsinger's Nissan.
Minutes later, Detective Bob Manzione spots Holsinger's parked car outside a third bar owned by the Son family, Miss Kitty's Village Inn Too.
Hoffman and Yoakam rush to the bar.
As Hoffman speaks to Manzione, Holsinger reappears and slides into the driver's seat.
``She's going mobile,'' Manzione says.
As many as five unmarked detective cars are following Holsinger's Nissan through traffic. Hoffman's is one of them.
Thoughts spin through his mind like dry leaves swirling in an autumn storm.
Can we stop her?
If we stop her, do we have to arrest her?
Can we arrest her?
How do I approach her?
How smart is she?
One of his thoughts is that Yoakam, his partner in the passenger's seat, is frazzled.
Yoakam, the lead detective in the case, has been crushed with an avalanche of breaking information about Clagett and Holsinger. He's also been awake more than 36 hours. Hoffman was called in much later, and is fresher.
Hoffman decides two things: They have to stop Holsinger, and he should do the talking.
He radios for a marked police car.
In moments, a white-and-blue cruiser slides past the detectives' cars and settles behind Holsinger's. The officer turns on his lights and Holsinger pulls to the curb.
Hoffman walks to her window.
``I'm Detective Hoffman with the Virginia Beach Police Department. Are you Denise Holsinger?''
``Yes.''
``I'd like to talk to you for a moment,'' Hoffman says. ``Would you step out of the car and talk to me?''
``Sure,'' Holsinger answers, swinging open the car door and stepping onto the sidewalk.
``Denise, you're not under arrest and you're free to leave at any time,'' Hoffman says. ``Do you understand?''
``Yes.''
``Denise, where is Michael Clagett?''
``I don't know who that is.''
``I know you know Michael,'' Hoffman says. ``I know you just left him.''
Holsinger's face flushes.
``I left him at Miss Kitty's,'' she says. Then, she blurts: ``He'll hurt me.''
Hoffman doesn't know Holsinger's role in the killings, or if she had a role, but he just caught her in a lie. Now he knows she's somehow involved.
He gambles with the next question.
``Denise, I need to know where the gun is. I am scared to death some small child is going to get that gun, and I don't want anyone else to get hurt. Where is the gun?''
``Michael's got the gun,'' Holsinger blurts. ``It's at the house.''
She starts crying.
``Will you go with us in our car and talk to us?'' Hoffman asks. ``You're not under arrest.''
It's 7:50 p.m.
For the next hour, Hoffman and Yoakam talk to Holsinger in a small, windowless interview room in the detective bureau.
A video camera records the conversation.
Holsinger's picture flickers on a small black-and-white monitor in a nearby room with tan curtains drawn across the floor-to-ceiling windows.
In the monitoring room, Detective Joel Davis watches the interview.
``She's rolling,'' Davis says, his eyes fixed on the middle of three monitors.
She's unloading the crime on Clagett.
``All of a sudden he came in the door,'' Holsinger says.
``Uh, huh,'' Yoakam nods.
``And, uh, J.R. (the cook and handyman) asked me, he said, `What is he doing here?' And I said, `Oh, that's just Mike.' I said, `He's just obsessed with me,' and then I introduced him. I said, `This is the man I used to be f------.' Excuse my language,'' Holsinger says.
The interview between Holsiger and the detectives is peppered with more than 150 vulgar profanities. All are hers.
``And then, all of a sudden, Mike was over on the other side of the bar and he told me just, he wanted me out,'' she continues.
Clagett pointed the gun at her, she tells Yoakam and Hoffman. Her story slips on key points. The inconsistencies mount.
She continues: ``He told them, `On the f------ ground, right now, m--------.' When I was going out the back door, he told them, `On the ground, m--------. On the ground.''
``You heard the shooting?'' Hoffman asks.
``No,'' she answers. ``I didn't hear any shots.''
``Initially, Denise,'' Hoffman starts, and Holsinger rolls her eyes. ``Listen to me. . . . Listen to me. You told me initially you did, and now you're going back and forth on this.''
``I didn't hear any shots.''
``All right,'' Hoffman says, backing off.
``I didn't hear any shots. I didn't hear any shots,'' Holsinger says, protesting. ``I want my husband.''
She's getting agitated, combative.
Yoakam eases out of the interview room to watch the monitors. He's waiting for a chance to slide back in, but the chance doesn't come.
With only Hoffman in the interview room, Holsinger begins opening up. In fact, she's flirting with him. Hoffman steers the conversation to her husband and family. She relaxes. Then, the detective nudges her back to the shootings.
``What did he say he did it for?'' he asks. ``Was he trying to prove a point to you?
``I'm a sexy m-----------,'' she says, matter of fact.
``Is that what he said?'' Hoffman replies flatly, as if the motive is one he's heard a hundred times before. ``He did it - he shot these people because you are sexy, or because he is sexy?''
``No, I am,'' she says, miffed.
What a loon, Hoffman thinks.
`Well, he shot them because you were sexy.''
``A sexy m-----------,'' she says.
``He said, `I just shot them because you're a sexy m-----------.' ''
``Yep.''
That's absurd, Hoffman thinks. Her story is changing each minute.
Like a child tangled in a web of lies, she's having problems remembering what she said, and what version of events she last gave. She can't remember where she said she parked, or who she first talked to, or where she was when Clagett came into the bar.
She's lying. Hoffman knows it. He drops a bomb.
``You know we have Mike, don't you?''
``Oh, my God.'' She stiffens in the chair.
``You know we have him, but Mike is telling us some different variations of the story, and this is what's concerning me. Mike says that you were inside when this went down.''
This time, Hoffman is lying.
No one knows where Clagett is.
Hoffman's lie rattles Holsinger. Her story changes again. She wasn't running out the back door when the shooting started, actually she was still in the room, she admits now. But she didn't see anything. She sticks with the denial.
Holsinger has now been degraded from witness to suspect in Hoffman's mind.
It is no accident that Hoffman, a smooth-talking, amiable detective, ends up in interview rooms facing the city's most notorious killers. His sharp memory, sympathetic voice and gentle manner unwittingly suck confessions from the most stubborn of suspects.
Holsinger is among the most stubborn he's encountered.
``Listen to me, listen to me,'' he says. ``I'm the closest thing you've got to what happened in there now, and I can help you. You understand me?''
``I didn't see anything, though.''
``But you were there.''
``I didn't see anything.''
``And it's going down and I know that, listen to me.''
``I didn't see anything,'' she says. ``I didn't see him shoot anybody.''
``You weren't standing all the way at the back door,'' he says. ``You were standing closer to the bar. Because I can see you. I can see it going down.''
Hoffman drops the hammer. The crime was captured on video. The bar owner had installed hidden cameras in the ceiling.
``Denise, at one particular point you turned all the way around and I can see, I'm looking right at you,'' he tells her. She slumps in her chair.
``I'm looking at you,'' Hoffman continues, ``and pictures don't lie on this thing because it's rolling the whole time and this is how we knew.''
Pictures don't lie.
But sometimes detectives do.
There are no video cameras. Hoffman's story is only a gutsy bluff. Holsinger falls for it. Her story changes again. This time, she says she probably saw the crime, but she's blocked it from her mind.
``Denise,'' Hoffman starts, ``let me explain something to you right now. Number one, from the get-go when I first met you, you lied to me. You've lied to me on at least three or four occasions and, you did flat-out lie to me. It's taken me a long time to get you to this particular point, but you haven't told me everything.
``Now,'' he continues, ``you're on the rim right now of being involved in it, or not, and I don't know where to go with it. But you're fastly becoming involved in it up to your neck. Now, either everything comes out now, or you are involved in it. Number one, you didn't turn around and come to the police.''
``I was scared,'' she says.
``Yeah, I know,'' Hoffman says. ``But guess what, that really puts you there. That kind of hangs you out.''
Hoffman gives her one last chance. But, embroiled in the worst murder in the city's history, Holsinger doesn't budge. With minor variations, her story remains the same.
``He told me to run out the front, I started to run out the front door,'' she says. ``And he told me, no, go out the back door.''
``O.K.,'' Hoffman says.
``And I just ran,'' she says. ``I f------ ran.''
``Is J.R. shot?'' Hoffman asks, referring to the cook, the first victim.
``Hush,'' Holsinger admonishes.
``No, I'm . . . ''
Holsinger cuts him off. ``Who's working this story, me or you?''
``No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,'' Hoffman says, shaking his head. ``You're not running this, I am. I want you to understand that.''
It's useless. Hoffman is tired and frustrated. And she's said enough.
``Denise,'' he says finally, ``stand up for me. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.''
It's 9:30 p.m.
Hoffman, Davis and Holsinger are driving in Hoffman's car to the magistrate's office. This time the detectives are in the front seat and Holsinger is handcuffed in the back.
She'll be booked for the murders.
At the Third Precinct, an ordinary-looking van with tinted windows pulls out of the rear parking lot. It parks across from Clagett's townhouse. Inside the van, police officers watch for the fugitive.
Hoffman parks his unmarked police car outside the magistrate's office at the Municipal Center. Holsinger is babbling at him.
``I didn't do it,'' she says.
Hoffman ignores her.
``I didn't do it,'' she repeats. ``I didn't do it.''
Hoffman turns around.
``Are you talking to me?''
``Yes, I am.''
``Wait a minute,'' Hoffman says. ``You're the one that wanted to talk to an attorney. You wanted to talk to a lawyer. You know I can't talk to you. If you want to talk to me, then tell me.''
``I want to talk to you,'' she says.
Hoffman reads the Miranda warning for the second time.
``You have the right to remain silent . . . ''
She doesn't.
It's 10:30 p.m.
In the Third Precinct muster room, more than two dozen men, clad in black and armed with Hechler & Koch MP5 machine guns, squeeze into chairs around rows of tables.
On the chalkboard is the layout of Clagett's residence, 4649 Georgetown Place.
The assault plan is finalized.
At 11 p.m., the SWAT team members climb through the rear doors of a plain white stepvan. The van rumbles out of the Third Precinct parking lot and motors toward Clagett's neighborhood.
Moments later, a Pembroke Landing Apartments resident calls the police communications center. A drunk is sleeping under some bushes near her apartment, the caller says.
The apartments are across the street from the Witchduck Inn.
Officer Donna Malcom is assigned the complaint.
Malcom, 36, spent her last shift at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital with one of the victims, and then returned to the Witchduck Inn to guard the back alley.
It's 11:30 p.m.
Malcom steers her police car into Moraine Court. She can see the yellow crime-scene tape still strung through the Witchduck Inn parking lot across the street.
She walks through the darkness, looking for the sleeping man. Tall shade trees hide the full moon above her. Her flashlight beam probes the ground in front of her.
Under a gnarled shrub, Malcom finds the dozing man. Her voice wakes him.
``Partner,'' she says. ``What are you doing down there?''
``Just sleeping,'' he says, his breath saturated with alcohol. ``I was trying to go home.''
Miles away, outside the First Precinct magistrate's office, Holsinger confesses in the back of Hoffman's car. She and Clagett robbed the bar and Clagett killed the four people inside. Davis takes notes while Hoffman talks.
In the detective bureau, Yoakam hands a hand-scrawled sheet of paper to a secretary. She types the narrative onto a search warrant. In the rush, Clagett's name is mispelled.
``Ms. Denise R. Holsinger gave statements to Va. Beach police detectives against her penal interest indicating she and Michael Clogett were at Witchduck Inn in the late evening hours of June 30, 1994, when Michael Clogett displayed a handgun and ordered the patrons and employees to the floor. Ms. Holsinger's boyfriend then shot Wendel G. Parrish. Ms. Holsinger advised the weapon was later placed in the master bedroom of the residence where Michael Clogett was residing directly behind the business.''
It's 11:42 p.m.
VanderHeiden is sitting in his unmarked car in the Third Precinct parking lot. He's waiting for the SWAT team to storm into Clagett's house and yank out the suspect, if he's home.
The lights are out. There's no movement inside. That's what the surveillance van reports from Clagett's street.
The SWAT team truck rumbles into Clagett's neighborhood.
It's 11:44 p.m.
Malcom, across the street from the impending SWAT assault, asks the slurring drunk a question.
``What's your name?'' she asks. ``Where do you live?''
``Michael Clagett,'' he answers. ``I live on Georgetown Place.''
``Put your hands on the wall,'' she tells him calmly. Malcom, alone, pats him down and cinches his wrists with handcuffs.
``What's wrong?'' Clagett asks.
``Well, you're drunk in public,'' she says. ``And there are some people who want to talk to you.''
Malcolm keys her police radio.
``Suspect in custody,'' she says. ``Moraine Court.''
VanderHeiden is stunned. The SWAT team hasn't deployed. And Moraine Court isn't where they were going.
In less than a minute, Malcom is surrounded by a dozen patrol officers and detectives. Clagett is sitting in the back of her police cruiser. On the hood is a crumpled wad of $1 bills.
It's midnight.
Across the street at Clagett's townhouse, the SWAT mission is canceled. A detective rings the doorbell without answer.
Exactly 24 hours after police first arrived at the Witchduck Inn, a detective's shoe slams into the front door of Clagett's townhouse, rattling the glass. On the third kick, the door frame yields.
Detectives Orr and Al Byrum charge into the darkened townhouse with their stainless steel Smith & Wesson 9mm pistols drawn.
``Police officers!'' they scream. ``Search warrant!''
No one is home.
In an upstairs bedroom, Byrum studies a pale yellow dresser with five drawers. On top is an automatic pencil sharpener, a golf trophy and two June 23 ticket stubs for Game No. 39 at Harbor Park - the Norfolk Tides versus the Pawtucket Red Sox.
Inside the dresser, exactly where Denise Holsinger told detectives to look, is a .357-caliber Magnum revolver.
``Hey,'' Byrum calls down to the detectives waiting in the living room.
``What?'' Lt. Dan Kappers answers.
``Bingo!''
``You are the man!'' Kappers yells back.
It's 12:13 a.m., July 2.
Clagett is sitting handcuffed in the same interview room where Holsinger had been hours earlier.
Yoakam is with him.
``I'm not going to beat around the bush,'' Yoakam says. ``We've been working too many hours on this particular case for me to sit here and nursemaid you through this thing. You were arrested because we know, through our investigation, that you were at the inn that night, OK?''
Clagett's lanky frame is slumped loosely in a stiff chair. He stares at the floor.
``As far as I can see, the only major mistake that you made in this whole thing is that you trusted in Denise,'' Yoakam says. ``You eliminated everybody or anybody who can testify against you except for her, and that was your major mistake, because she is not going to take the fall for this.''
``I'm sure she said I pulled the trigger,'' Clagett answers.
Like Holsinger before him, Clagett gushes denials. Yoakam goes for the heart.
``Who do you think she asked for first?'' Yoakam prods.
``She didn't ask for me.''
``No,'' Yoakam says evenly. ``Not even close.''
``I know who she asked for. She's little Miss Navy Wife. Y'all think you got an airtight case. I'm glad you think you do. You think you got your little star witness now. I'm just afraid she didn't tell it all.''
Clagett wants a cigarette. Yoakam promised he'd get one, but several minutes have passed and Clagett's nerves are twisting tighter. He renews his request.
``I'll get you a cigarette,'' Yoakam says.
``I heard that before. You want something, and I want something, too.''
Yoakam leaves the room. He returns a minute later with two cigarettes. Clagett lights one. He inhales deeply, tilts his head back, and expells a stream of smoke that slowly wafts upward.
``You can fry me,'' Clagett says.
The confession is so sudden Yoakam is almost startled.
``That's what I am going to ask for when we go to court. Fry me, I'm not going to live. I don't want the taxpayers supporting me. I did it. Yeah, I did it. I did it all. All by my f------ self. Let that little c--- go free. I did it all, buddy. And the worst thing was. . . ''
``What was that?''
``Lam was my buddy, that's the f------ worst thing. He was my buddy.''
It's over.
In a rambling catharsis, Clagett relives the crime - a sordid tale of sex, conspiracy and manipulation.
This is what Clagett tells Yoakam:
Denise Holsinger planned the crime, and dumped six bullets from her pack of Doral menthol cigarettes into his hand. He loaded the gun. They walked to the bar.
She plunked a quarter in the jukebox, sipped a draft beer, and whispered to him: ``Do it. Do it.''
He yanked the weapon from his waistband and hurdled the bar.
He ordered Karen Sue Rounds, the waitress, to lie on the floor. He told the bar's only customer, Abdelaziz Gren, to get down with her. Then, bar owner Lam Van Son came out of the kitchen.
``Keep your head down, Lam!'' Clagett screamed as Son dropped to the floor. ``Keep your head down, buddy!''
The cook, Wendell G. Parrish, was still sitting on a bar stool. Clagett pointed the gun at his face, just inches away.
``J.R. said, `Do it' - and he got it,'' Clagett tells Yoakam.
Parrish slumped dead on the bar.
Son turned his head left and strained his neck to see his slain employee.
Clagett loomed over the bar owner. He stooped to press the muzzle of the powerful revolver against Son's white ball cap.
No one pleaded for their lives.
No one asked him to stop.
No one cried. No one ran. No one moved.
Clagett pulled the trigger.
Then he shot Gren. Then he shot Rounds.
Holsinger cleaned out the register and erased her fingerprints with a bar towel.
Clagett saw the blood run onto the floor, and gagged.
They ran out the back door, past the bar owner's sleeping 4-year-old son. Holsinger ordered Clagett to shoot the boy.
Clagett couldn't.
``How much money did she have,'' Yoakam asks. ``I'm sure she counted it.''
``I don't know.''
``She didn't count it?''
``She told me there was $400,'' Clagett says.
``Four hundred dollars?''
``Four hundred dollars. One hundred dollars a f------ life, and those people, two of them that I know. I saw Lam's wife this morning. I wanted to say something then, but it just don't matter. I know I'm going to die, I know it. I want to. I will. I don't care what I got to do. I will die. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in prison. I will die. I need to, but so does she.''
Clagett is crying.
Yoakam listens to Clagett purge his conscience several minutes more. He leaves the interview to get the arrest warrants.
``Each one of these warrants is for capital murder,'' Yoakam says.
``One carries the death penalty, right?''
``Yes . . . '' Yoakam says. ``This is for the robbery of the business. This one is for knowingly and intentionally possessing a handgun after being convicted of a felony. Do you have any questions of me?''
``Can you get me a cigarette before I go to my cell?''
``Yes,'' Yoakam says. ``This is for using a firearm in the commission of a felony.''
``Can you make one out for being a f------ idiot?''
It's noon, July 2.
On the chalkboard behind VanderHeiden's desk in the detective bureau, the crime-scene diagram has been erased. VanderHeiden's handwriting has replaced it.
``Good Job!'' the board says.
But the work isn't done. There is still another search warrant to write, evidence to voucher, and a case file to organize.
It will take two black binders - each several inches thick - to compile the case against Denise R. Holsinger and Michael D. Clagett. July 5 It's 9:30 a.m.
At the pair's arraignment, Clagett addresses the judge:
``Is there any way to skip the preliminary (hearing) and go straight to sentencing?''
That same day, Lam Van ``L.V.'' Son, 41; Abdelaziz ``Aziz'' Gren, 34; and Wendel G. ``J.R.'' Parrish Jr., 32; are buried at Rosewood Memorial Park.
Karen Sue Rounds, 31, was buried in her native Pennsylvania.
EPILOGUE
Son's widow, Lanna, reopened the bar Aug. 20, changing the name to Lanna's Pub. On the wall is a plaque that reads: ``In memory of L.V. Son, J.R. Parrish, Karen Rounds and Aziz Gren. Witchduck Inn. June 30, 1994.''
Sgt. John T. VanderHeiden requested a transfer to the Special Investigative Division, where he now gathers intelligence. All 16 homicides under his supervision were solved.
Detective Darrell Jackson requested a transfer to the Uniform Patrol Division. He now works in the department's Fourth Precinct.
Detective Bobby Sager, a nine-year homicide investigator, requested a transfer to the Economic Crimes Unit.
Detectives Paul Yoakam, Shawn Hoffman, Gene Eller, John Orr and Al Byrum continue to investigate homicides. In 1994, there were 36. It was the city's most murderous year ever.
Denise Rayne Holsinger pleaded guilty May 1 to four counts of first-degree murder, one count of robbery, and five counts of using a gun during a crime. She will be sentenced Wednesday. She faces a maximum of five life terms plus 21 years.
Although Michael David Clagget confessed to detectives, three television stations, a newspaper reporter and to anyone who would listen, he in April changed his mind and requested a jury trial.
He was convicted of all charges on July 11, 1995.
On July 22, 1994 - exactly three weeks after the chaos of the Witchduck Inn - the city's murder police walked into a one-story home at 2433 Seaboard Road.
Four more bodies.
Another quadruple homicide.
At 9 a.m. on that warming summer morning, the detectives of Virginia Beach's Homicide Unit began another hunt, for another quadruple killer.
Unlike the Witchduck Inn case, the Seaboard Road quadruple homicide wasn't solved in a day. It took two days.
Lead detective John Orr and the rest of the Homicide Unit successfully prosecuted 16-year-old Marvin Owens for killing four family members. Owens was sentenced to life in prison. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by Lawrence Jackson
8:31 P.M. July 1, 1994 Detective Shawn Hoffman calls out for a
warrant to be placed on Michael Clagett after police questioned
Denise Holsinger.
11:50 P.M. July 1, 1994 Michael Clagett sits in a marked police car
after he was identified as a suspect in the Withchduck killings.
8:27 P.M. July 1, 1994 Detectives Paul Yoakam and Shawn Hoffman
interview Denise Holsinger.
12:38 A.M. July 2, 1994 Detective Paul Yoakam interviews Michael
Clagett.
12:05 A.M. July 2, 1994 Lt. Dan Kappers slumps on the steps of
Clagett's townhouse after Clagett and Holsinger are captured and the
.357-caliber Mangum revolver is found in Clagett's home. Nearly 24
hours from the start of the investigation of the murders, the case
has been solved.
3:00 P.M. July 11, 1995 Lead Detective Paul Yoakam gets a hug from
Khadija Gren-Johnson, sister of murder victim Abdelaziz Gren, after
Michael Clagett is found guilty in the Witchduck murders.
Staff map
Area shown
Clagett arrested
Clagett's residence
Witchduck Inn
KEYWORDS: MURDER CAPITAL MURDER MASS MURDER SERIES by CNB