Court filings suggest motive in Alexandria slayings

Megan Cloherty and Amanda Iacone, wtop.com

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Alexandria’s prosecutor says that Charles Severance chose
to kill three of the city’s residents over more than 10 years to “accomplish his
unorthodox political goals.”

Investigators uncovered a cache of writings by Severance as they probed the
fatal shootings of Nancy Dunning, Rob Kirby and Ruthanne Lodato. The writings
outline a man angry with the government and those whom he felt represented the
“system.” He endorsed murder and assassination and details his motivations for
the deaths of all three Alexandria residents, court documents say.

The court filings submitted Thursday also provide more details about the
evidence investigators have gathered against Severance.

According to court documents, Severance was angry after his parental rights were
terminated. He continued to try and reverse that court decision for more than a
decade and even wrote his own court briefs, some of which were filed as recently
as 2011, Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter writes.

Investigators found more recent writings in Severance’s car and home that
describe his ongoing anger at the city’s court system and toward “status quo
utopian elites,” according to the court records.

“The writings show (Severance) as intelligent, well-read, calculating, and
focused on violence. His own philosophy of anger and hatred towards ‘elites’ and
‘the enforcement class’ involve citations to Rosseau’s (sic) social contract
theory…and the theory of the Noble Savage. (Severance) has twisted these
theories to justify his violent acts,” the filings say.

Severance is charged with murdering Dunning in 2003, Kirby in November 2013 and
Lodato in February. Once a candidate for Alexandria mayor, Severance lived on
Gunston Road, within a mile of all three victims’ homes, from the 1990s to the
early 2000s. It was during that time that his child was born and his parental
rights ended, Porter writes.

According to court documents, the evidence describes Severance’s “disturbing
fascination” with a specific make and model of .22 revolver, which he describes
as “beautiful, tiny and deadly,” and .22 hollow point ammunition. He refers to
these bullets when fired as “sweet music and very, very effective.”

Forensics have determined that the shooter likely used three separate guns in
the killings but they appeared to be the same make and model. The shooter also
used the same type of ammunition, all made by one manufacturer, in all three
shootings.

Severance owned a .22 revolver that matched the bullets found during the Dunning
investigation. He also had access to two other .22 revolvers during the time
frame that Kirby and Lodato were killed.

Severance became the main focus of a police investigation after the death of
Lodato in February. Investigators developed a sketch based on the bearded man
who knocked on Lodato’s door, spurring a manhunt in Alexandria. Tips led
investigators to Severance, whose grizzled beard and hair appeared strikingly
similar to the sketch.

Police later said that the bullets found in all three cases were strikingly
similar.

A trial date is currently set for October 2015.

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