Man sentenced to life for killings in Va. Beach

Carl Lee Walton was ordered Tuesday to spend the rest of his life in prison for shooting two women point-blank in the head nearly four years ago.

Walton, convicted Friday of capital murder, first-degree murder and related firearm charges, winked to relatives and waved as he was led from the courtroom after Circuit Judge Stephen C. Mahan imposed the sentence.

He was ordered to serve life without parole on the capital murder charge, two life sentences for first-degree murder and eight years for the firearm charges in the Dec. 21, 2005, shooting of Ronique Ewing and Tonya Smith in Burton Station.

Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant had argued for Walton's execution. He praised the victims' relatives for persevering through the past four years, enduring Walton's 2007 mistrial, and sitting through argument and testimony this week and last.

Smith's mother and stepfather left as the judge explained his decision. Some of Ewing's relatives shook their heads.

"We have to live with it," said Ewing's sister Dena McBeth. "I just feel like he is a future danger. There's no reason for him to be good."

In announcing his decision, the judge noted Walton, 37, was a threat to society. He called death an "appropriate" sentence but said life in prison without parole was "adequate."

Defense attorneys Timothy Quick and John Hooker Jr. convinced him that alcohol and drug use affected the defendant's ability to reason, "and that he acted while severely mentally or emotionally disturbed," Mahan said.

Walton was enraged because he believed the women had stolen $600.

During the sentencing phase of the trial, Quick told the judge that no good would come of executing Walton. He asked him to consider Walton's childhood - born to a 17-year-old alcoholic mother and an absentee father, then bouncing from relative to relative - as he weighed the punishment.

He also mentioned Walton's two teen age children and suggested Walton could find redemption while spending the rest of his life locked away.

"This man will die in prison behind many layers of concrete, many layers of barbed wire, without access to drugs, alcohol or firearms," Quick said.

Prosecutors insisted the judge send Walton to his death. Bryant, the commonwealth's attorney, noted that Smith, 27, and Ewing, 28, received no mercy, and their young children received no consideration.

Ewing's sisters testified that they treated Walton, whom they had known for years, like a brother. They said her son, now 8, points skyward to honor his mother every time he scores a touchdown in youth football. He often cries at night, and sometimes draws pictures of guns, which he says he would use to kill Walton.

Smith's mother testified that she has become guardian of her daughter's young son. The boy doesn't remember his mother, she said.

Bryant pointed to Walton's criminal record, which he said indicated a progression of crimes culminating with the shooting of Smith and Ewing.

Records show Walton was convicted of discharging a firearm, carrying a concealed weapon and, in 1996, voluntary manslaughter. Walton later told his probation officer that he shot that victim because 'he wouldn't stop banging on my door,' " Bryant said.

He added that Walton had beaten another inmate at the city jail so badly the victim needed stitches, and Walton had not apologized or shown remorse for the 2005 shootings.

A few hours later, as he stood before the judge and awaited his sentence, Walton turned to his victims' relatives and said he was "deeply sorry for what I've done."

Shawn Day, (757) 222-5131, shawn.day@pilotonline.com