Mother of Prince William victims: “I’ve forgiven, but I’ve not forgotten”

A decade ago, the murder of her older daughter and rape of her younger sent Lorraine Reed Whoberry down an uncertain path.

Tomorrow, it will lead to "L Unit" at the Greensville Correctional Center, also known as the death house, where Paul Warner Powell is set to die in the electric chair for the 1999 capital murder of Stacie Lynn Reed, 16, of Prince William County.

In 2008, after years of anguish, a retrial and appeal delays and after receiving abusive letters from the seemingly remorseless killer, Whoberry managed to forgive Powell.

"My life was forever changed . . . because a huge part of me died when Stacie was killed and Kristie was attacked," said Whoberry on a recent visit to Richmond.

"Being able to forgive him has helped me heal," she said.

In a letter to Powell last year -- but that his lawyer said Powell, for whatever reason, did not receive -- Whoberry wrote:

"As you're probably well aware, it's been nine long years. I can't begin to imagine where your thoughts take you regarding your actions. But my mind is completely at peace with the tragedy of my daughters.

"I'm writing this letter to you from my heart. You have no idea what the past nine years have been like for me, as I can't begin to imagine what they have been for you!

"I can honestly say, 'I'm no longer angry at you!!' I'm completely free from all that. I miss Stacie very much, but I know without the slightest doubt, I will see her again. God has given me the most overwhelming peace."

Nevertheless, she said, she wants the sentence carried out.

"I've forgiven, but I've not forgotten," she explained in an interview. "The journey that we're on now is awesome . . . but we have this execution hanging over our head."

. . .

After his first death sentence was thrown out, Powell, 31, was hoisted by his own petard onto Virginia's death row a second time, for the capital murder of Stacie Lynn Reed.

Believing there was no risk of execution in a retrial on a lesser charge of first-degree murder, Powell wrote a mocking letter to the prosecutor, revealing he had attempted to rape Stacie before killing her in her Manassas-area home.

Far from repentant, Powell was boastful. Whoberry recalls that the letter left her stunned and angry. Then, she said, "I realized he had signed his own death warrant."

The obscene correspondence helped win a new death sentence and, unless Gov. Timothy M. Kaine or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, this time Powell will be executed tomorrow at 9 p.m.

Whoberry, now a resident of Cincinnati, plans to attend.

"We have lived hell on earth and have endured two capital-murder trials. Never has he shown us any remorse for his actions," she said last month.

"I need to be able to look into his eyes and see the pain he's enduring for murdering Stacie and his unsuccessful attempt to murder Kristie. I need to know he's suffering inside for his actions."

If the execution is carried out as scheduled, Powell will not wear a mask when led into the execution chamber, but soon after he sits in the electric chair his eyes and mouth will be covered by the strap used to secure his head.

Powell has filed a clemency petition with Kaine. Whoberry and her husband of 2½ years, Richard Whoberry, were in Richmond last month to meet with officials in Kaine's office to urge the governor to reject clemency.

Powell's lawyers later met with officials in the governor's office to argue on behalf of clemency.

Powell could not be reached. Jon Sheldon, one of his lawyers, said: "Paul has been remorseful constantly since I have known him. . . . He has started letters to the family many times."

But Sheldon said he discouraged Powell from sending them after the attorney general's office told the lawyer that the family did not wish to be contacted.

Long before Sheldon represented him, Powell wrote letters to Whoberry. "It was very demeaning, degrading," she said of the unwelcome correspondence. Sheldon said the way Powell feels now "is extremely contrary to his obscene, obnoxious letters [and] his public persona."

Sheldon said Powell told him he never received the Feb. 6, 2008, letter Whoberry sent him. On Thursday, with Whoberry's permission, Sheldon read to Powell over the phone a similar letter she wrote April 17, 2008, but never mailed.

In addition to telling Powell she had forgiven him, she wrote: "I want you to know, I pray for you and your salvation daily." She also offered to meet with him, in response to meeting requests he had made in earlier letters to her.

However, on Thursday she wrote to a reporter in an e-mail that, "I have decided against meeting with him face to face. I wrote that letter over a year ago; it would have been different, had I been granted permission to see him then."

. . .

Powell's career in crime started at age 12. According to testimony and court documents, as a child he had a "toxic" home life in a Manassas-area trailer park. As a juvenile, he was arrested 16 times on charges including assault and battery.

He was placed in juvenile correctional and mental-health facilities at least 13 times. His longest stays were 89 days at an acute-care psychiatric unit and 81 days at the Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center.

In 1993, a psychologist said Powell showed signs of suicidal thoughts and self-destructive tendencies.

In his short life as a free adult, Powell, an avowed racist, was arrested more than a dozen times on charges including possession of drug paraphernalia, breaking and entering, trespassing, grand larceny, and writing a bad check.

He turned killer on Jan. 29, 1999, when the then 20-year-old stabbed Stacie, a high school freshman, in the heart after the two argued about her black boyfriend and Powell attempted to rape her.

Armed with a survival knife, a box cutter and a 9mm handgun, Powell then sat down on a sofa in the Reeds' Manassas-area home, smoked a cigarette, drank iced tea and waited until Stacie's 14-year-old sister, Kristie, arrived home from Parkside Middle School.

As Stacie lay dead in her bedroom, Powell ordered Kristie into the basement, raped her on the concrete floor, tied her up with shoe laces, choked her, slashed her throat, cut her wrist, and stabbed her in the stomach before he sneaked out and left Kristie for dead.

Kristie, who knew Powell, survived and identified him to police who found Powell eating pizza and drinking beer at a friend's house when they came to get him.

He was convicted of the abduction, rape and attempted capital murder of Kristie and of the capital murder of Stacie for which he was sentenced to death in 2000.

But the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the first death sentence in 2001. The justices ruled that in order to be a capital murder, it had to have been proved that Powell had raped, robbed, or attempted to rape or rob Stacie in addition to killing her.

On Oct. 21, 2001, Powell was awaiting a second trial, charged with the first-degree murder of Stacie -- and facing a maximum punishment of life in prison -- when he wrote a letter to Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert that began:

"Since I have already been indicted on first degree murder and the Va. Supreme Court said that I can't be charged with capital murder, I figured I would tell you the rest of what happened on Jan. 29, 1999 to show you how stupid all you . . . are."

Powell wrote that he attempted to rape Stacie and killed her as she was fighting him off. Ebert now had the evidence to charge Powell with a capital crime -- murder in the commission of an attempted rape. Powell was retried and again sentenced to death.

"He stuck his foot in his mouth," Ebert said last month. He said Powell has stopped writing him letters. The prosecutor said he also may attend the execution.

In a petition now before the U.S. Supreme Court, Powell's lawyers argue that trying him on a charge of capital murder of Stacie during or after attempting to rape her constitutes double jeopardy. They say it is unconstitutional because prosecutors introduced evidence in the first trial that he attempted to rape Stacie. This contention was rejected earlier on appeal.

It is not clear when the justices will act on the petition or an accompanying motion for a stay of execution.

. . .

Kristie Reed, now 24, her throat still scarred, lives in Texas and hopes to become a police officer, Whoberry said.

Whoberry started the S.T.A.C.I.E. (Striving Towards Achieving Compassion, Intervention & Education) Foundation, which offers "Impact of Victimization" seminars.

Among other things, she helps educate authorities on how to work with victims. She even goes to jail, where she tells inmates, "you're not on death row yet -- don't let yourself go there . . . you can turn your life around."

Whoberry believes Powell needs to repent. But, she said, "I'm not convinced he has a conscience."

"I forgave Paul Powell. However, I've not forgotten his brutal acts."

Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or .