Brian Cherrix was executed by the State of Virginia for the murder of Tessa Van Hart
According to court documents Brian Cherrix would order a pizza and had it delivered to an empty vacation home. When Tessa Van Hart showed up she would be sexually assaulted and murdered
Brian Cherrix would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Brian Cherrix would be executed by lethal injection on March 18 2004
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When Was Brian Cherrix Executed
Brian Cherrix was executed on March 18 2004
Brian Cherrix Case
Convicted killer Brian Lee Cherrix was executed by injection last night in Virginia’s death chamber, a decade after he raped and killed a young mother on Chincoteague Island. Cherrix, 30, of Accomack County, Va., was pronounced dead at 9:10 p.m. in Virginia’s death chamber at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said. The execution was the first in Virginia this year. Cherrix declined to make a final statement, Traylor said.
Cherrix was sentenced to death for the Jan. 27, 1994, slaying of Tessa Van Hart, 23, a mother of two who worked as a pizza delivery woman on Chincoteague Island. Van Hart was lured to a remote, unoccupied summer home by a man who ordered a pizza, according to court records. She was sodomized and shot twice in the head.
Grace Hitchens, Van Hart’s sister, said yesterday that her mother, Van Hart’s widower and other relatives traveled to Jarratt to attend the execution. Hitchens said that she would not attend and that she instead planned to take flowers and candles to her younger sister’s grave and set off some small fireworks there. “I saw enough of [Cherrix] at the trial,” said Hitchens, 41. “I think getting a lethal injection is too simple compared to what he did to her.” Hitchens said her sister, one of five children, was a sweet young woman who loved horses and unicorns. “She was beautiful,” Hitchens said.
Cherrix, who has claimed innocence, decided not to seek clemency and instructed his defense attorneys that he did not want them to file any final appeals, said Michele Brace, one of his attorneys. Brace said Cherrix told her he did not want to spend his life in prison. Cherrix’s case gained attention in 2001 when a federal judge ordered DNA tests after Cherrix claimed he was wrongly convicted. Brace said that there was not enough genetic material to conduct the tests and that the results were inconclusive. Authorities have said they are confident Cherrix killed Van Hart. His conviction has been upheld by the Virginia Supreme Court and the federal court.
Van Hart’s slaying went unsolved for more than two years until Cherrix, who was facing a sentencing hearing on an unrelated charge, offered to provide details about the Van Hart case in exchange for leniency, according to court records. Cherrix initially said his cousin, who died in a 1995 car crash, killed Van Hart, the records state. But Cherrix later said that he sexually assaulted Van Hart and then shot her as she begged for her life, according to the records.
Traylor said Cherrix spent yesterday afternoon meeting with relatives and a spiritual counselor. He requested a final meal, Traylor said, but asked that it not be revealed.
Two people were executed last year in Virginia, corrections officials said. The execution of death row inmate Dennis M. Orbe, 39, is scheduled for March 31. Orbe was convicted of killing a York County store clerk in 1998.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6250-2004Mar18.html