Execution carried out in'94 killing of woman

BY FRANK GREEN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 19, 2004


Cherrix

JARRATT - Brian Lee Cherrix was executed by injection last night for the 1994 capital murder of Tessa Van Hart in Chincoteague.

Cherrix, 30, was pronounced dead at 9:10 p.m. in the death house of the Greensville Correctional Center, said Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

When asked if he would like to make a last statement, Cherrix said, "No, I do not."


Van Hart, 23, the mother of a young son and daughter, was a pizza delivery woman. Cherrix lured her to her death with a phony pizza order on the night of Jan. 27, 1994. Van Hart was sodomized and shot twice. Her body was found in her car near the vacant home where she attempted to deliver the pizza.

The killing went unsolved for three years.

In 1997, when being held in jail for unrelated crimes, Cherrix confessed to police after first trying to blame the slaying on a deceased cousin. In a 2001 interview with The Times-Dispatch, Cherrix denied he was guilty and said he confessed only so police would stop bothering him.

Cherrix declined to be interviewed last week.

In 2001, Cherrix won a court order for DNA testing in the case but the bio- logical material in question proved unsuitable for testing.

Robert L. Jenkins Jr., one of Cherrix's lawyers, said that Cherrix did not want to ask Gov. Mark R. Warner for clemency and that he had instructed his lawyers not to file any appeals on his behalf.

Yesterday evening, Warner issued a statement noting that Cherrix's death sentence had been affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court. "I have not been asked by Mr. Cherrix to intervene, there are no legal challenges to this scheduled execution, and accordingly, I expect the court-ordered sentence to be carried out," he said.

Cherrix, citing his belief that the human body is a temple that should not be mutilated, won permission from the state medical examiner's office to not have his body autopsied after his execution as is the standard practice.

Instead, said Jenkins, the medical examiner planned to closely view Cherrix's body and take a blood sample for toxicology testing after his death.

Traylor said that members of Van Hart's family witnessed the execution. He could not say who they were or how many were present.

Traylor said Cherrix visited with immediate family members, the clergy and his lawyers yesterday afternoon.

Cherrix was the first person executed in Virginia this year and the 90th since the death penalty was allowed to resume by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

i have been to this prison a few times...saw the building where they execute...it was a horrible feeling then, and still is when I read about an execution in Jarrat Greensville corr. center....

:( I've been there many times as well... When Michigan housed level 1s and 2s from Michigan in Virginia this is where they were at...

My thoughts are with him and his family and friends...

Deb

Thanks for moving this i realised after i had posted it, it was in the wrong section :)

Brian Lee Cherrix may you rest in peace.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the Cherrix family and there friends, as well as the victims family.
I hope everyone can find peace.
Just another pointless murder.

My husband and I attended a vigil at Greensville for Brian Cherrix the night he was executed. We were with a group of about 40 people from Virginians Against the Death Penalty. It was quite a moving experience. Before the excecution the names of the 89 executed and their victims were read. At 9:00 when the execution was taking place we read a prayer and it started raining. Then Brian's name was read along with his victim. We lined the road and waited for Brian's body to pass. As we stood at the road, there were a man and woman standing across the road from us. As Brian's body passed they clapped and hollered. The man said " He murdered my daughter". Then they got into their car and drove away.

Doesnt one wish that the victims could in some way come back and tell us, what it is that they want done to their attackers. I am sure it would be a different solution to the one currently being served. Do the victims families really think that their children would want this, the way it is happening now. How is it going to be when they perhaps meet up in the afterlife, are their children/parents/family members going to perhaps ask them why they thought that killing someone for retribution was what they wanted. I have told my kids, if it ever happened to me, never participate in the murder of my attacker. If they got the death sentence, protest it. I would hate to have to meet my kids in the afterlife one day and the fisrt thing i would have to same to them, is WHY?

I know that this may sound hard, Keltria. But there are many victems of crime, who lived to tell of stories of their attacks. And many of them would most certainly want the kind of retribution that you are discribing: the Death Penalty.

To be a person such as yourself, having the willingness to forgive a perpetrator for a crime done to you, takes a lot of guts and a strong heart of forgiveness.

MrCoffee