THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290461
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 133 lines
One by one, the parents and brother of Pamela Kimbrue locked eyes in court with her killer Tuesday, confronting for the first time the man who raped and murdered her in the fog off Willoughby Bay nearly 15 years ago.
``You robbed me of my daughter and sentenced me to a life of grief and mourning,'' Sandra Kimbrue told the killer, Richard Whittle, looking straight at him. ``A lifetime of nightmares imagining the horror and terror my daughter went through in the last minutes of her life. I'm wearing a button of her face in case you've forgotten it. I'm sure you haven't forgotten her terrified screams.
``They say time heals all wounds, but wounds leave scars. You've permanently scarred this mother's heart.''
After listening to testimony that moved nearly everyone in the federal courtroom to tears, Judge Rebecca Beach Smith sentenced Whittle to two consecutive life sentences, with a recommendation that he never be paroled.
Because of federal law in effect in 1982, the year Kimbrue was killed, Whittle will be eligible for parole in eight years. Smith was unmoved by evidence of Whittle's loving support for his handicapped wife and their 9-year-old child in California.
Whittle was arrested by naval investigators last year, 14 years after he sent Kimbrue to her death, pushing her car into Willoughby Bay after wrapping a seatbelt around her neck.
During those years, Whittle avoided detection while marrying and starting a family 3,000 miles away from the crime scene. But he led a double life, engaging in sexual harassment of co-workers and indecent exposure and making obscene phone calls.
Kimbrue's family could never imagine the face of her killer. Her mother, 46 when Pamela died, had imagined various scenarios: Her daughter was a Navy messenger who saw something she shouldn't have.
``All these years, thinking there was some reason,'' she said after testifying. ``Then to find out it was just a creep who saw her one night and decided to rape and kill her the next.''
Three hours before Tuesday's sentencing, federal prosecutors showed Sandra Kimbrue, her husband, Albert, and Pamela's brother, Gregory, a photograph of Whittle, fearing the shock of seeing the killer in person after so many years would overwhelm them.
Each took the stand, confronted Whittle and expressed the impact of 14 years of grief and rage. While they testified, Whittle, a diminutive man with an acne-scarred face, held his hand over his mouth and hunched over, but could not seem to avert his eyes from their faces.
``You'll be alive tomorrow, but my daughter will be forever in her grave,'' Sandra Kimbrue told him. ``You've had 15 years of freedom to enjoy, to build a life while we've tended our daughter's grave. You are the lowest form of life, a depraved, pathetic coward who skulked in the dark and attacked an innocent young woman . . .
``I'll see you never draw another breath as a free man.''
For years, Whittle managed to hide his dark side from family and friends. His wife of nearly 10 years, Jeanne S. Silveri, cannot accept that her husband is a killer.
``I do not understand the past,'' she wrote Judge Smith. ``I told him when I met him that I had been crippled when I was 29 years old so he knew what he was getting into. But he doesn't care and still doesn't.
``He loves me for me and the way I am,'' she wrote on lined paper, the pages neatly numbered. ``He always promised me he would take care of me.''
The family home was loving, according to eight character letters written on Whittle's behalf. They describe warm holiday gatherings with friends. Several call Whittle a ``gentleman.'' His best friend wrote that ``the greatest testament'' of his true worth is ``character of his charming little girl.''
Yet Whittle continued to make obscene phone calls, just as he had around the time Kimbrue was killed. He publicly masturbated outside a Los Angeles condominium complex, terrorizing residents for nearly two years.
In a phone call less than a year after the murder, he told a woman, ``I used to know a woman named Pam. But she's gone now.''
Whittle continued his double life, unaware federal agents were watching him until they arrested him last June. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service ``cold-case'' squad reopened the case in May 1995. They applied new technology to old evidence, using DNA and new fingerprint techniques to link him to the crime scene.
The evidence showed that on March 25, 1982, Whittle waited outside the communications center at Norfolk Naval base while Kimbrue, 21, delivered messages inside. He put a ski mask over his face, attacked her and dragged her into her car. When he started to take off her clothes, she ripped his ski mask off. Believing he would be identified, Whittle hit her several times with a soda bottle, tied her hands behind her back, wrapped the seatbelt around her neck and pushed her car into the water.
Police found messages strewn about the parking lot.
On the day Pamela died, Albert ``Sam'' Kimbrue heard his name called over the loudspeaker of the Michigan hospital where he counselled substance-abuse patients.
``I knew something dreadful had happened to my daughter when they said two Navy officers were there to see me,'' he testified Tuesday. ``They hadn't found her yet.''
Later that evening, the men came back.
``They told us she was murdered, and for the first time in my life, I felt like a madman.''
Kimbrue locked eyes with Whittle.
``I never thought I could hurt anyone, just help people, Whittle. I think I could have done it to you that day.''
``She was my tomboy,'' he said. ``She loved animals dearly. She got that from me. . . . She watched me clean fish when she was very very young. I taught her.''
Kimbrue held up an orange and yellow card his daughter sent him the last Father's Day before she died.
``The other day, I watched a father and his little girl on the beach,'' she wrote. ``A man was cleaning fish while his little girl observed. It sure brought back a lot of memories of watching you clean the fish you brought home. It was the best biology class I could have had no matter what school I went to. Happy Father's Day Dad and even though I'm not near. I hope you can hear me say I love you.''
When Whittle rose to address the court, his voice broke.
``I'd just like to express my sincere apologies to the family,'' he said, his voice rising. ``I'm not an evil person. What happened was evil. I wish I could explain why it happened. I am responsible for taking her life. I'm sorry for the pain I've caused her family.''
Federal prosecutor Laura Everhart said, ``He would be a pathetic loser if he weren't a dangerous sexual predator.''
Judge Smith called the crime vile.
``You picked her out. You fixated on her . . . You waited in the dark. You knocked her out. You tied her hands. But you still weren't done. . . . You could have stopped. But you didn't . . . Admit it. You killed her because she knew who you were.''
Before pronouncing sentence, Smith said, ``I have a duty to protect society from your dark side. When will it erupt? Whose mother? Whose daughter? Whose sister?
``You've got a daughter. Would you want your daughter meeting up with someone like you? . . .
``You think about that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Pamela Kimbrue
Color court drawing
Richard Whittle
KEYWORDS: SENTENCE FEDERAL COURT MURDER