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Life sentence: Differing stories in Aldridge family slayings

The man who pleaded guilty in June to killing special education teacher Robin Aldridge and her daughter, Mani, will serve a life sentence plus 40 years in prison.

On December 5, 2014, Gene Washington allegedly beat the 58- and 17-year-olds to death before swaddling them in blankets and setting their Rugby Avenue home ablaze. He was arrested for the double slaying three days later.

“This was not a crime between strangers,” capital defender Jennifer Stanton said in Charlottesville Circuit Court September 25 to a crowded room of friends and family of both the defendant and the deceased. “Gene went to see Mani for one reason only, and that was to continue with their relationship.”

The prosecution painted a sharply different picture of what could have happened between the women and the man who entered an Alford plea to their capital and second-degree murders, and said Mani caught him robbing the house, and he killed her and then waited for Robin to come home. A voicemail confirmed that the Aldridges did not arrive at the house at the same time.

Robin, who taught in the Albemarle County school system for 30 years, adopted Mani from Ukraine in 2000, and according to their obituaries, their lives “were a true love story.”

“They came together from worlds away, and inspired everybody who knew them as they faced life’s road together, bumps and all,” and their home was full of “music, art, food, animals, children and love,” the obit says.

Though it had been speculated that Washington and Mani were sexually involved, it was brought up in court for the first time during Charlottesville Police Lieutenant James Mooney’s testimony.

Since being jailed, Washington has sent numerous letters proclaiming his innocence to news outlets including C-VILLE Weekly, former Charlottesville Police Department chief Tim Longo and the attorney general’s office, among many others.

In the letter to the AG’s office, postmarked December 14, 2015, Washington described “womanizing both mother and daughter” by having sex with them, and said on December 5, he was having sex with Mani when Robin found them and began attacking both of them. Washington said he and Mani allegedly fought back.

“I was under eminent danger and using self defense,” Washington wrote.

He wrote to his probation officer, Paul Anderson, about a year later, and described a “love triangle” between himself, Mani and Robin. Washington, who was married, said they were “obsessed” with him and that he felt guilty for committing adultery. And in his April 18, 2016, letter to Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, he said police knew about his relationship with Mani, but not with Robin.

Emotions ran high in the courtroom, with several people who came in support of the victims wiping away tears while Mooney read the letters.

The validity of Washington’s story was called into question, and Mooney testified there was no physical evidence that the man knew Robin, but that phone records connected Washington with her daughter.

Clinical and forensic psychologist Jeffrey Aaron, who spent about 18 hours with Washington over the span of a year and a half, repeated a similar version of the story. He said the alleged murderer told him that he and Mani were having sex downstairs when an enraged Robin came home to find them, called him a “child molester” and started beating him and Mani with a hammer and a knife. The two allegedly ran upstairs to get dressed and locked themselves in Mani’s room. Then, Washington told Aaron he attempted to leave the home, but stopped to talk to Robin first. He said she was still angry and said she was going to call the police, so he became scared and “started swinging,” killing both of the women. Washington said he gathered items in the home that would connect him to the murders.

But the prosecution has a different theory—that the killings were premeditated—and pointed out numerous inconsistencies in Washington’s version of the story, including that Mani’s bedroom door didn’t have a lock and Washington didn’t have the markings on his hands or arms that one would expect from defending himself.

Prosecutor Libby Killeen said Washington told a friend weeks before the murders that he would be selling a car, and that Robin’s blue Toyota Matrix, found in the parking lot of his Barracks West apartment complex, was the car he was selling. At the time of their deaths, the Aldridges were also wearing jackets and shoes.

Gene Everett Washington. Photo: Charlottesville Police Department

While Aaron testified there’s a chance Washington could have made up some of the details, he said the defendant’s background and psychological profile suggested it was likely that the murders were a response to Washington’s strong emotions, and probably not premeditated.

The defendant, who has dealt with depression, anxiety, PTSD and substance abuse issues, has a hard time distinguishing between what is real and what is not, according to Aaron.

In a three-hour testimony, the psychologist described Washington’s unhappy childhood, said he had significant learning problems and effectively still functioned as a child. Washington is considered intellectually disabled and neuropsychologist Joette James testified that his IQ is 76.

Aside from underperforming in school, his severe allergies and asthma caused him to be hospitalized as a child, which also gave him a sense of inadequacy, according to Aaron. He dealt with nocturnal enuresis, or bedwetting, through his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, which contributed to his feeling embarrassed and ashamed.

Washington’s home life was unstable, and by the time he was in fifth grade, he had been placed in eight different schools.

When Aaron testified that Washington’s mother berated him, called him stupid and beat him as a child, Washington shook his head and wiped tears from his eyes with a tissue. Aaron said Washington’s sister was also abused. His mother had one or more partners who abused her in ways such as punching, choking and setting her hair on fire.

When he was in ninth grade, the home Washington was living in with his mother caught on fire and burned to the ground, destroying all of the family’s possessions. And when his brother was murdered in 2006, Washington was locked up and couldn’t attend the funeral. His lengthy rap sheet includes assault, grand larceny and drug charges and several probation violations.

“The two of them were very, very close,” Aaron testified. “This was just event after event after event.”

Washington’s grandmother, Katherine Burton, was the last witness to take the stand. She said her grandson was devastated by the death of his brother, Scooter, and that the family knows the pain of having a beloved member murdered.

“They did everything together, including getting in trouble,” Burton said, and also recounted their early days when Washington was an usher at their church and Scooter played drums in the band.

Outside the courtroom, the Aldridges’ friends and family hugged Burton.

Though the judge granted the prosecution’s request of life in prison, Killeen said there are no real victories in these types of situations.

“Their lives were cut short with these brutal murders and their survivors have to go through that loss,” she says. “In a situation where someone has received the maximum possible terms, it’s also the case that it’s a tragedy for Mr. Washington’s family.”

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Gene Washington pleads guilty

The man charged with beating a 58-year-old special education teacher and her 17-year-old daughter to death before setting their Rugby Avenue home ablaze in December 2014 pleaded guilty to one count of capital murder and one count of second degree murder in Charlottesville Circuit Court on June 21.

Gasps filtered through the courtroom and a man sat with his head in his hands as the now-convicted murderer entered his plea deal in the deaths of Robin and Mani Aldridge. Gene Everett Washington, 32, entered two Alford pleas, meaning he won’t go to trial and he acknowledges that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict him for the murders.

Judge Rick Moore said Washington will not face the death penalty, but one of his three attorneys, capital defender Jennifer Stanton, says she fully expects the prosecution to ask for life in prison.

Stanton says her client has “intellectual deficits.”  Outside the courthouse, she said that he is ready to “take responsibility and put the whole thing behind him,” but in his September sentencing, the judge will find that “his version of what happened is not the same version” as the prosecution’s. It was revealed in court that after Washington’s arrest, in a letter to the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, he claimed it was self defense.

Robin Aldridge’s blue Toyota Matrix was found at Washington’s apartment complex, and his bloody shoes were found in a dumpster outside the apartment, according to testimony from a June 2015 preliminary hearing.

William Tatton, a volunteer firefighter and first responder to the house fire on December 5, 2014, described seeing a woman’s hand resting on the stairs as he was searching the basement of the Aldridge home for victims. This was the body of beloved Hollymead Elementary School  teacher Robin—and the body of Mani was soon found lying next to her mother’s.

Over 10 witnesses testified at that hearing in 2015, including an investigator who said Washington’s DNA was found on a slightly bent, blood-stained knife, towels and rubber gloves in a dumpster outside of his Barracks West apartment. The DNA on the knife matched Mani’s, as well.

Former Chief Tim Longo, who was at the helm of the Charlottesville Police Department at the time of the murders, announced that Mani and Washington “were known to each other,” but their last known contact by phone or text was in October, months before the murders.

The dumpster also held Robin’s iPhone 6, which rang when police called it, as well as a pair of bloody orange and black Nikes, which Washington could be seen wearing in surveillance footage from the day of the murders and in his own Youtube videos, according to testimony.

On the same day investigators found evidence in the dumpster, they found the Aldridge’s stolen car just feet away in a Barracks West visitor parking space. Detective Stephen Carson testified that he began knocking on residents’ doors in the apartment complex when he came across a man whom he identified in the June hearing as Washington.

Carson said Washington fully opened his apartment door until he saw Carson’s police badge and slowly began closing it. When the investigator asked Washington if he knew any details about the stolen car or evidence, Carson said the man charged with the crimes vigorously picked his hair and broke eye contact when the officer used words such as “murder” or “homicide.”

At that time, Washington said he didn’t know anything.

In a letter to C-VILLE, postmarked December 29, 2014, Washington insisted on his innocence, claiming he was at friends’ houses and in multiple stores at the time of the crimes. He blamed the media for stating “false information to communities as if I’m some monster…I did not do this,” he wrote, “and I’m not going to stop telling everyone my innocences!”

His lengthy rap sheet includes convictions in 2004 and 2006 for burglary, breaking and entering, grand larceny and drug possession, and assault on a female in North Carolina in 2013.

“He’s not a monster,” longtime friend Jasmine Speller told C-VILLE a couple weeks after the murders. She had spoken with Washington days before his arrest and said their conversation was upbeat, with the now-convicted murderer focused on work, his marriage and a newborn son. “It’s never been in his nature to become volatile to the point that he’s hurting someone and can’t stop it.”

Those who came to show support for the Aldridges declined to comment after the hearing.

Updated: June 22 at 1:26pm

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In brief: Robert E. Lee weighs in, Monticello trail crushed and more

What would Robert E. Lee say?

We tried to check in with the man at the center of the current controversies taking place in the eponymous Lee Park, but since he’s been dead for 147 years, we instead asked Lexington author David Cox, who just published The Religious Life of Robert E. Lee, to channel what he thinks the General’s response to our questions would be.

To white nationalists assembling at his statue’s feet: “I think he would be appalled.”

To statues commemorating the Lost Cause: Lee was asked to identify battle sites at Gettysburg for monuments, and he refused. He advised “not to keep open the sores of war” and instead to “obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.” Says Cox, “He’d be a terrible poster boy for the Lost Cause because he wanted the nation to put the war behind us.” After the Civil War, Lee changed and became the South’s chief proponent of peace and reconciliation, he says.

To statues erected of him: “He was very humble. He’d oppose them.”

To demonstrations in Lee Park: He’d oppose on both sides because they arouse passion and continued partisanship, “particularly those trying to preserve the Lost Cause.”

To white nationalism: He shared the sense of racial superiority most white people had in that day, but he also dissipated two lynch mobs in Lexington, says Cox. “He’s not a racial supremacist in the style of these recent protests.”


“It isn’t Richard Spencer calling the cops on me for farming while black. It’s nervous white women in yoga pants with ‘I’m with Her’ and ‘Coexist’ stickers on their German SUVs.”—Sylvanaqua Farms owner Chris Newman in a viral May 17 Facebook post


Questionable competency

Gene Everett Washington. Photo: Charlottesville Police DepartmentGene Washington, charged with the 2014 murders of special education teacher Robin Aldridge and her daughter, Mani, will take a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he’s competent to stand trial this September for the slayings, ordered Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Rick Moore on May 22. Results must be in by his next scheduled hearing on June 21.

Couple indicted in 4-year-old’s death

A grand jury indicted Heather Massey, 27, and Nicholas J. Stoia, 25, May 22 in the death of Cole James Clark May 15 in Orange when the child shot himself with a handgun in the home of his daycare provider. Massey faces five felony counts and four misdemeanors, and Stoia, a Stafford County sheriff’s deputy recruit, faces one felony and four misdemeanor charges.

Crisis management

Police report a suicidal 22-year-old UVA student was spotted atop a crane near West Main and 11th Street SE around 10:40pm May 19 and was aloft for nearly four hours, before descending safely when two crisis team members prepared to ascend. The young man was hospitalized for evaluation under an emergency custody order.

No redeeming architectural value

clockshopThe Board of Architectural Review okayed a demolition permit May 16 for the Clock Shop of Virginia on Water Street. Built in 1950, the property was bought by Black Bear Properties LLC for $450,000 last summer, and Hunter Craig signed the demo permit, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports.


Monticello trail closed

Monticello Trail
Courtesy Monticello

If a hike around TJ’s homestead is on your calendar, be aware that a portion of the Saunders-Monticello Trail is currently closed.

Trail manager Julie Roller says during recent spring storms, two trees fell across the boardwalk and caused structural damage in both locations.

Currently, the upper portion of the trail, which winds up to Monticello, is closed from the David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center, but the lower portion is open until the fourth boardwalk. The entire trail is scheduled to reopen by mid-June.

Other hot spots, including the Pond Trail, seven miles of Rustic Trails and Secluded Farm, are still open. “It’s a great opportunity to explore somewhere new,” Roller says.

In other trail news, a group of UVA urban and environmental planning master’s degree students presented a study called “Charlottesville to Monticello & Beyond” to community stakeholders May 12. The team has come up with four potential routes to connect the city to the Saunders-Monticello Trail to improve pedestrian and bicycle connectivity.

Courtesy Monticello

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Gene Washington’s lawyers want grand jury records

Attorneys for the man charged with the capital murders of a beloved teacher and her daughter in 2014 asked a judge for the grand jury records for the past four years in Charlottesville Circuit Court today.

The slayings of Robin Aldridge, 58, a special education teacher with Albemarle County, and 17-year-old Mani, a junior at Charlottesville High, shocked the area after neighbors reported their Rugby Avenue home ablaze December 5, 2014, and their bodies later discovered in the smoldering ruins.

Three days later, police arrested Gene Everett Washington, 31, after Robin Aldridge’s Toyota was found in the parking lot of his Barracks West apartment complex and bloody clothing, a knife and Aldridge’s new iPhone 6 was found in the dumpster there.

Washington sat in court for the brief hearing during which his capital attorneys from Norfolk sought the records. “The defense does not have to make a showing there’s been a deficit in the grand jury process,” said lawyer Jennifer Stanton.

“They need to show some reason,” argued prosecutor Libby Killeen. She cited the confidentiality that’s given to grand jurors and asked if there was a concern with the demographics of the jury that indicted Washington.

“Your sole point in getting this information is to look at the racial disparity?” asked Judge Rick Moore.

“To help determine if there’s a pattern,” replied Stanton.

Moore noted that the grand jury lists he sees generally only provide names, addresses and phone numbers. He agreed to allow the defense to see the list of jurors who indicted Washington in June 2015, and said there would be a protective order to keep the names from being shared with anyone other than Washington’s defense, which was not permitted to contact the jurors.

Five to seven jurors are called each month to serve on the grand jury from a pool of 120, and at least one is usually African-American, said Moore.

Legal expert Dave Heilberg said, “As far as makeup and selection, that’s something that can be examined. Obviously in a capital case with that much at stake, you’ve got to look at that. They could find something they could leverage.”

After the hearing, Stanton said, “In other jurisdictions, the grand jury process has been found to be hugely deficit.” And she said such a request for grand jury information was standard in a capital case.

 

 

 

 

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Dollar disadvantage: Gene Washington’s attorney says money matters

The man charged with brutally beating to death special education teacher Robin Aldridge and her daughter, Mani, and then setting their Rugby Avenue home on fire in December 2014, appeared before a judge for a motions hearing April 21. One of his three attorneys argued that he’s at a disadvantage because, in her words, he’s “poor.”

Defense attorney Faith Winstead asked that Gene Everett Washington, an indigent defendant, have the same privileges as more affluent defendants in his psychiatric, psychological and medical health evaluations.

According to Winstead, defendants who can afford their own attorneys are able to choose from a larger list of health professionals to complete their assessments, but the list for defendants who have an appointed attorney is narrow. Likewise, those with their own lawyers have more autonomy over how to report and present their assessment results to the prosecutors.

Those like Washington are required to report the results with no alterations and disclose all documents relating to the assessments, says Winstead.

“Does this set him up to be in a different position because he doesn’t have money?” she asked Judge Richard Moore in Charlottesville Circuit Court. “Is he in a different position because he is poor?”

Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman said he doesn’t believe that a nonindigent defendant is free from disclosing all health assessment results to the prosecutors, but he would ask the court for all provisions to apply to both types of defendants moving forward.

Moore said he’d need more time to review the submitted documents and he’d make a decision about the health assessments at a later hearing. Washington is scheduled to appear for his next hearing on May 23, and his trial, which could take three weeks, is scheduled for May 2017.

The attorneys also discussed jury selection at the hearing. Moore said a panel of 20 jurors usually answers general questions together, and then jurors may be questioned individually. Most likely, he said, the defense will want to speak one-on-one with jurors about death penalty qualifications.

Defense attorney Katherine Jensen raised concerns about the potential for police to not provide all of the exculpatory evidence found in the case, though there’s no doubt, she said, that the commonwealth has provided them with all the evidence it has.

Moore said police, by law, must make all exculpatory evidence available.

Charlottesville Police Captain Gary Pleasants says all evidence, including anything believed to be exculpatory (also known as Brady material), is documented and provided to the prosecutor’s office where it is available to defense attorneys.

“This is the open-file policy that both the police department and commonwealth attorney’s office adhere to,” Pleasants says.

Both city and county courts also abide by open-file policy, though it’s not required.

Gene Washington

Courtesty of the Charlottesville police department

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Gene Washington appears for last motions hearing of the year

The man charged with brutally beating a mother and daughter to death before setting their Rugby Avenue home on fire one year ago appeared in Charlottesville Circuit Court December 7 for a motions hearing.

Gene Washington faces capital murder charges for the death of special education teacher Robin Aldridge and her daughter, Mani.

Judge Rick Moore denied a request by Washington’s defense attorneys—Katherine Jensen and Lloyd Snook—that called for the commonwealth’s attorney to not be present while the defense views evidence, instead asking for supervision by an evidence technician or police officer.

“We shouldn’t have someone looking over our shoulder,” Jensen said. “We’re just asking for the playing field to be even.”

According to Jensen, prosecutors gauge the defense’s reactions to each piece of evidence and  take note of how long they spend looking at specific pieces. The defense is not allowed in the room while the prosecuting attorney views evidence.

“I don’t think I can take that right away from [the prosecutors],” Judge Moore said, denying the motion. Two other motions, which were granted, were procedural.

Some of the evidence in Washington’s trial includes a bent knife, rubber gloves, blood-stained sneakers potentially belonging to him and bloody towels or sheets he allegedly used to wrap the Aldridges’ bodies after he beat them and before he set their home on fire.

Washington’s trial is in May. His next motions hearing is set for February.

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Gene Washington appears for motions

The man charged with killing a special education teacher and her daughter appeared in Charlottesville’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations court for a motions hearing on October 5.

Gene Washington’s attorney requested the authority to issue subpoenas for records without having to notify the prosecution, but Judge Rick Moore denied the request. Other motions were mostly procedural.

Washington is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Robin Aldridge and her daughter, Mani, after both were found dead in their Rugby Avenue home following a December 5 house fire. Police say the fire was not responsible for their deaths, but rather blunt force trauma was. Washington also faces capital charges.

He did not testify at the motions hearing, and while his trial is scheduled for May 2016, he’ll appear in court again on December 7.

Related links:

Aldridge murders: Gene Washington goes to grand jury

Hearings set: Accused Rugby Avenue slayer Gene Washington in court

Hundreds mourn Aldridges as friends of accused killer Gene Washington question evidence