friday, march 13 , 2020. the washington post eZ re B5
consider in death penalty cases. A
new sentencing was ordered. And
in the meantime, fairfax County
elected a new prosecutor who
opposes the death penalty. So on
Thursday, with the approval of
new Commonwealth’s Attorney
Steve T. Descano, Lawlor was
resentenced to life without pa-
role, agreeing to waive any rights
to appeal or seek early release.
orange’s family favored the
death penalty. “We would prefer
he died before we died,” said
Brenda o. Luper, orange’s half
sister. “That’s what marilyn want-
ed,” s he added, referring to mari-
lyn orange, Gini orange’s moth-
er, who is now hospitalized in
poor health at age 73 and did not
attend the resentencing. “This
has just really taken her life away.
Gini meant everything to her.”
The mother and daughter
spoke every morning before Gini
orange went to work, and it was
marilyn orange who sounded the
alert when she could not reach
her daughter on Sept. 25, 2008.
marilyn orange could not be
reached for comment Thursday.
Descano campaigned last year
on a platform of criminal justice
reform, to include opposition to
the death penalty. “I will not seek
the death penalty — period, full
stop,” he wrote in his “Progressive
Justice” outline of his ideas.
Descano said Thursday that
the life sentence for Lawlor “is a
notable outcome because it exem-
plifies that our criminal justice
system can seek justice, find reso-
lution, and keep our community
lawlor from b1 safe while adhering to our com-
munity’s values.” I n Virginia, the
law gives commonwealth’s attor-
neys full discretion over when to
seek the death penalty.
former fairfax County com-
monwealth’s attorney raymond
f. morrogh, who prosecuted Law-
lor in 2008, sharply criticized the
life sentence. He had intended to
seek the death penalty again be-
fore he was defeated by Descano
last year.
“I believe that the twelve citi-
zens on the jury who voted for the
death penalty,” morrogh said,
“and the judge who imposed it
were amply justified in light of
the evidence and past criminal
history of the defendant. ... The
crime was vile and inhuman. The
sheer brutality and horror inflict-
ed on this innocent woman places
this crime and this defendant
among the worst of the worst. ...
It’s a bad time for victims, justice
and public safety.”
orange was born and raised in
the roanoke area, where her
mother stil l lives. S he graduated
from Virginia Te ch in 2001 with a
marketing degree. She then
moved to the Washington area,
and wound up living in the Prest-
wick Apartments, now called the
Jefferson Apartments, on Lees-
burg Pike in the Seven Corners
area.
Lawlor, 53, was born and raised
in New Jersey, where his lawyers
said his mother repeatedly beat
and abused him, while his father
molested and raped Lawlor’s sis-
ter. At 16, when he tried to stop his
father from abusing his sister, his
father marched him out of the
house at gunpoint and ordered
him to leave. His lawyers said he
began drinking and using drugs,
and after he moved to Virginia, he
crashed a car while driving drunk
and killed a friend. He was 18 and
sent to prison.
Court records show that Law-
lor encountered the law again in
1998, when he began stalking an
ex-fiancee in Great falls. Police
said he slid under her garage door
one night as she arrived home,
kicked her windshield repeatedly
until he made a hole in it, then
yanked her out of the car and
placed her in his vehicle. He
served five years in prison for
abduction.
While in a recovery program
after his second release from pris-
on, Lawlor was placed at the
Prestwick Apartments, where
fairfax County said it was leasing
apartments for recovering ad-
dicts. Eventually, he became a
leasing agent.
Trial testimony indicated that
on Sept. 24, 2008, Lawlor and
another man went on a day-long
bender of voluminous crack
smoking and beer drinking. Later
that night, or early the next morn-
ing, Lawlor obtained a key to
orange’s apartment, entered and
struck her 47 times with either a
hammer or a frying pan, causing
multiple skull fractures, autopsy
records showed.
After the jury convicted Lawlor
of capital murder, they had to
decide on a penalty of life in
prison without parole or death.
To win a death sentence, prosecu-
tors in Virginia must prove either
that the crime was so vile that itmerited ultimate retribution or
that the defendant poses a threat
of future danger to society. mor-
rogh chose to prove both.
But when defense lawyers
mark Petrovich and Thomas
Walsh wanted to have an expert
testify that Lawlor would not be a
future danger in prison, morrogh
objected and fairfax Circuit
Court Judge Jonathan C. Thacher
prevented it, saying the future
danger testimony must be about
all of society, not merely prison.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the
4th Circuit ruled in November
2018 that Thacher was wrong and
that it could have affected the
jury’s decision. It o rdered a resen-
tencing.
fairfax Circuit Court Judge
randy I. Bellows took over the
case. He asked Deputy Common-
wealth’s Attorney Jessica Greis
Edwardson on Thursday whether
orange’s family had been consult-
ed about the new agreement to
seek a life sentence for Lawlor.
“Their preference is death,” Ed-
wardson said. But she told the
judge that was not an option,
because “the decision of mr. Des-
cano is that he was not willing to
pursue the death penalty in this
case.” Bellows accepted the agree-
ment to impose life sentences
without parole on two counts:
capital murder in the commission
of rape and capital murder in the
commission of abduction.
“I just really want to apologize
to the family,” Lawlor said. “I
know those words are kind of
empty. ... What I did was a horri-
ble, horrible thing.”
[email protected]Death row inmate resentenced to life without parole
BY CATHY FREEmost mornings just after
8 a.m., mary fannie Woodruff ar-
rives at Woodruff’s Store Cafe &
Pie Shop two hours before the
first customers to peel apples,
fold pie boxes and make sure all of
the ingredients are on hand for
her sweet-potato-and-buttermilk
pies.
She also needs a long morning
break for coffee with extra sugar,
but never mind that. Woodruff is
103 years old.
“I love what I do, but I have to
have my coffee,” she said. Her
morning coffee and watching the
company she keeps are the secret
to her good health, she said. And
an occasional thick slice of butter-
milk pie doesn’t hurt, either.
It w as 1952 when Woodruff and
her late husband, James Earl
Woodruff, o pened a small grocery
store and gas station in the two-
story cinder-block building they
built along a rural highway near
monroe, Va., about 180 miles
southwest of Washington. The
couple raised five children in the
apartment upstairs, and mary
Woodruff often spent busy sum-
mer afternoons pumping gas for
vacationers.
The shop, which is on State
route 130 in Amherst County, w as
turned into a sandwich and pie
cafe in 1998 by Woodruff’s daugh-
ter, Angela Scott, who hoped to
sweeten the family legacy. Scott
was joined by her sisters, twins
Darnell Winston and Darnett
Hill, and their mom, who was
delighted to have her daughters
together again.
Although the women have seen
many changes since the 1950s,
one thing has remained constant:
their love of sharing (and enjoy-
ing) a slice of homemade pie.
“There’s nothing better,” said
mary Woodruff, who also raised
two sons above the shop. “Nobody
can resist stopping to try our pie.”
“People walk in, and their eyes
light up when they see the pies in
the case and then see mama,” s aid
Angela. “ ‘Look, there she is!’ they
tell each other. Everybody loves
her.”
With the annual mathematical
celebration of Pi Day on march 14,
Woodruff and her daughters ex-
pect a rush on the pies they offer
in flavors of apple, pecan, butter-
milk, sweet potato, coconut cus-
tard and lemon meringue.
But most people drop by year-
round for another reason: to
spend time with mary Woodruff.
When her husband died in
1998, she was happy to have a new
reason to spend her days inside
her old shop after Angela turned
the place into a cafe.
“I do love pie,” said Woodruff,
who especially enjoys makingsweet potato pies from memory.
“But more than anything, I like to
sit and talk to the customers.”
Although she no longer lives
above the shop, Woodruff still
doesn’t have to travel far to work.
She lives across the street with
daughter Darnell, near the site
where her husband’s g randfather,
Wyatt Woodruff, opened a black-
smith shop and became the first
African American man to own a
business in Amherst County, said
Scott, 61.
“He was a freed slave who
earned his freedom during the
Civil War,” she said, “and when he
moved here, the spot where his
shop was became known as Wy-
att’s Corner. our family has been
here ever since.”
During the civil rights move-
ment of the 1950s and 1960s, the
Woodruff family experienced dif-
ficult times, with some white fam-
ilies avoiding the store, mary
Woodruff said. Her twin daugh-
ters were the only black children
at Elon Elementary School, three
miles up the road.
“Somebody threw a brick
through our store window be-
cause they didn’t want my girls
integrating the school,” she said.
“It was heartbreaking when that
happened, but we kept sending
them. We thought it was impor-
tant.”
“Looking back, I sometimeswonder how in the world we
made it,” added Darnett Hill, 69.
“We were 7 years old, and we were
used to being protected and loved
by our family. But my parents
weren’t afraid — they thought we
should go to school in our com-
munity like the other kids.”
The work inside the store takes
place in the kitchen from 10 a.m.
to 4 p.m., Wednesday through
Saturday, as mary Woodruff, her
daughters and Angela’s husband,
Larry Scott, mix up filling and roll
out pie crusts to keep hungry
customers supplied with their fa-
vorite pies.
“Growing up, we always had
fresh pie or cobbler at h ome,” s aid
Angela Scott. “mama used fresh
berries and peaches from our or-
chard, and of course we always
had those cobblers with ice
cream.”
Scott, who has a background as
a restaurant waitress and hostess,
said she decided to open a cafe in
her parents’ old store after she
attended a family reunion and
learned more about her ancestry.
“I can’t explain it other than I
felt I had a calling,” she said. “I
just knew that I was supposed to
do it. There’s so much history
here.”
“A nd a whole lot of love,” adds
her mother. “Who doesn’t love
pie?”
[email protected]Virginia
A shop’s visitors want pie — but also to meet the 103-year-old maker
angela Scott
Mary Fannie woodruff sits with some freshly baked desserts this
month at woodruff’s Store Cafe & Pie Shop near Monroe, Va.of the intersection o f Georgia Ave-
nue and University Boulevard —
to find a man atop a woman who
was naked from the waist down,
according to charging documents.
The officer yelled at the man to
get off the woman but
ended u p having “to phys-
ically pull him off of her,”
officers w rote in court pa-
pers. The man immedi-
ately apologized to the of-
ficer. “I’m sorry. I’m sor-
ry,” he said, according to
the police affidavit.
The woman “appeared
unresponsive although
her eyes were open,” po-
lice wrote.
Kaitlyn Pote, a spokeswoman
for ICE, described Lopez-Gonza-
lez as an “unlawfully present Sal-
vadoran national.” S he said he was
believed to be associated with the
mS-13 street gang.
Pote could not immediately
provide details of why Lopez-Gon-
zalez was deported earlier. ICE
has lodged a detainer for Lopez-
Gonzalez at montgomery’s jail,
meaning that agents want to take
custody of him i f he is released.
The case was first reported by
WJLA-TV.
[email protected]BY DAN MORSEA 35-year-old maryland man
was charged with rape amid alle-
gations he assaulted a woman un-
derneath an outdoor staircase
next to a sidewalk in
downtown Wheaton, ac-
cording to montgomery
County court records.
The suspect, Jose Lo-
pez-Gonzalez, had twice
been deported to his na-
tive El Salvador — in
2007 and 2010, accord-
ing to a spokeswoman at
U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement.
Lopez-Gonzalez, who is due in
court again April 3, is charged
with second-degree rape and sec-
ond-degree assault. Court records
do not indicate if he has retained
an attorney.
About 9:30 p.m. on march 5,
montgomery County police were
called about a possible sex assault
in progress along a side street,
according to a police affidavit filed
in court. The caller said a woman
was screaming “No!,” a ccording t o
the documents.
An officer arrived at the 11200
block of Grandview Avenue —
which is several blocks southwestMarylandMan charged in rape
near Wheaton sidewalk
Jose lopez-
gonzalez, 35.debate the extraordinary step of
postponing a vote on the budget.
“There’s been a dramatic
change in our economy,” Sen.
Stephen D. Newman (r-Bedford)
argued on the Senate floor. “I’m
concerned for Virginia.”
“It’s true that we’re in trou-
bling and uncertain times,” Sen.
Janet D. Howell (D-fairfax),
chairman of the Senate finance
Committee, replied. “[But] I
don’t think there’s any need for
us to act precipitously.”
Howell cited the historically
high levels of the state’s rainy-day
reserve funds in the new budget
— about $2 billion — as insur-
ance against downturn, and sug-
gested that not passing the bud-
get now might affect Virginia’s
jealously guarded AAA bond rat-
ing.
Instead, Howell and other
Democrats said they would stay
in close contact with Northam
over the coming month as he
makes final decisions on signing
and amending the budget.
Northam could suggest changes
if the economy is clearly tanking;
the legislature reconvenes
April 22 to take up any vetoes or
proposed amendments.
“This is a pandemic. This is a
tremendous health crisis and
we’re concerned about that,”
House Speaker Eileen f iller-Corn
(D-fairfax) said. “But does it take
away from what all that we ac-
complished for Virginians? No.
We h ad a very successful s ession.”
budget from b1 The House and Senate both
passed the budget Thursday with
bipartisan — but not unanimous
— approval. Clashes between the
two chambers had prevented the
General Assembly from adjourn-
ing as scheduled Saturday.
The plan sent to Northam (D)
reflects the liberal priorities that
powered Democrats through the
session, but retains some of the
fiscally conservative traditions of
recent republican leadership.
State employees would get a
3 percent bonus the first year of
the budget and a 3 percent salary
hike in the second — unless the
state misses revenue projections.
State police would s ee a 2 percent
pay raise the first year and a
3 percent raise the second.
The plan includes money for
the state’s portion of a 2 percent
pay raise for public school teach-
ers in both years of the budget,
along with extra support in other
areas o f education to free u p local
money for salaries. There’s also
money for freezing tuition at
public colleges and universities
for the coming year.
The Senate got funding includ-
ed for building a tunnel to the
Capitol from the new General
Assembly office building, which
is under construction.
Based on big revenue esti-
mates — which went up more
than $200 million just last
month — the budget is more
generous than any in recent
years. It includes $1.2 billion in
new funding for transportation
and $1.4 billion for public educa-
tion, including more than
$100 million for early-childhood
initiatives.
In inflation-adjusted dollars,
the K-12 spending gets the state
back to where it was in 2008 —
just before the recession.
The legislature’s budget plan
shows the impact of several poli-
cy changes passed this year. It
includes extra money to cover the
cost of a higher minimum wage,which a measure passed by the
legislature would r aise a bit every
year until hitting $15 per hour in
2023.
It covers the start-up cost of a
state-run health-care exchange,
which would ultimately be self-
funding, and adds money under
medicaid to increase reimburse-
ments to doctors and create an
adult dental insurance plan.
There is funding for 10 newpositions in the State Police, most
of them tied to new gun- control
laws such as universal back-
ground checks, extreme-risk pro-
tective orders and limiting hand-
gun purchases to one per month.
The state attorney g eneral’s office
would get three new positions to
handle complaints under a new
Virginia Human rights Act,
which sets out protections for
women, minorities and LGBTpeople.
The state lottery will need
more than 100 new positions to
oversee the new sports betting
and casino operations legalized
in bills passed this year.
Though Democrats cheered
when the budget passed the
House, some acknowledged that
the euphoria of earlier in the
session had been tempered by
recent events. Lawmakers in the
crowded Capitol joked about el-
bow bumps a nd hand sanitizer as
they monitored news of school
closures and the cancellation of
the ACC basketball tournament.
“We’re monitoring the situa-
tion and it’s still a little fluid, and
if we need to come back and
make adjustments we will,” Sen.
Jennifer L. mcClellan (D-rich-
mond) said. “But this budget sets
out what our priorities are, and I
think those priorities aren’t go-
ing to change.”
Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-fair-
fax) called it a “historic session”
and said the state is prepared for
any downturn.
“We have the largest rainy-day
fund in the history of the com-
monwealth right now,” he said,
adding that experts warned more
than a year ago that “sugar highs”
were powering the economy.
“A nd when you get high on sugar,
the crash hits you pretty hard. So
this wasn’t entirely unexpected
based on the briefings we’ve been
getting, which is why we’ve been
putting this money away.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Va. legislative session’s end is clouded by uncertainty, fear over pandemic
Steve Helber/aSSocIateD PreSS
delegate terry g. Kilgore (r-Scott), right, at a budget briefing at the Capitol on thursday. lawmakers
passed a $ 135 million spending plan that some say was a relic from a more optimistic economic time.Inbox inspirational
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