The murder of Nancy Dunning
Alexandria, Virginia · 2003
Overview
Nancy Dunning, 56, a real estate agent known as the Queen of Del Ray and the wife of the sheriff of Alexandria, Virginia, was shot in the front hallway of her home on December 5, 2003, after failing to meet her husband and son for lunch. Nothing was taken and there was no forced entry. The case went unsolved for a decade, during which suspicion fell unfairly on her husband, who died in 2012. In November 2013 and February 2014 two more prominent Alexandria residents, Ronald Kirby and Ruthanne Lodato, were shot at their front doors in daylight within about two miles of the Dunning home. Firearms examiners found all three sets of bullets were rare Remington .22 subsonic hollow points fired from North American Arms five-shot mini revolvers, ammunition the examiners had seen in no other case. The investigation focused on Charles Severance, a former mayoral candidate with a grievance against the city's courts from a custody case in which orders had been served in the sheriff's name. He was arrested in West Virginia in March 2014 and convicted of all three murders on November 2, 2015. He was sentenced to three life terms plus 48 years.
How it was solved
The Dunning case had one lead in 2003, a man seen on Target surveillance video leaving the store at the same time as Nancy Dunning, and he was never identified. Police said she had been targeted, and suspicion settled on her husband, the sheriff, whose alibi was solid; he retired in 2005, left the state and died in 2012 without being cleared. The break came from two later killings. Ronald Kirby, 69, was shot at his door on November 11, 2013, and Ruthanne Lodato, 59, on February 6, 2014; a caregiver in the Lodato home was shot and survived, and her description produced a sketch. On March 6, 2014, police announced that bullet fragments from all three scenes shared the same rare rifling class; at trial, three state firearms examiners testified that the ammunition, Remington .22 long-rifle subsonic plain lead hollow points, had been seen by them in exactly three cases, these three, fired from North American Arms five-shot mini revolvers, and that three different revolvers of that type were used. A tip named Charles Severance, who resembled the sketch. He had lost custody of his son in the Alexandria courts in 2001 after orders served on behalf of the sheriff, had run for mayor twice, had been convicted in 2004 of carrying concealed weapons including a North American Arms .22, and had persuaded his girlfriend to buy two such revolvers and subsonic ammunition in 2012. The day after the police linked the cases he sought asylum at the Russian Embassy; Secret Service photographs of his red Ford Escort matched a car recorded near the Lodato home minutes before the shooting. He left his girlfriend's home with the revolvers missing and was arrested in Wheeling, West Virginia, on March 13, 2014, with a gun cleaning kit, latex gloves, cash and his passport but no gun. More than two thousand pages of his writings included instructions to buy that gun and ammunition and the line Knock, Talk, Enter, Kill, Exit, Murder. Commonwealth's Attorney Bryan Porter chose to try all three murders together and not to seek the death penalty. After more than three weeks of trial the jury convicted him on all counts on November 2, 2015. The Court of Appeals of Virginia affirmed in 2017 and the Supreme Court of Virginia in 2018.
Sources
- Severance v. Commonwealth, Record No. 0308-16-4 (May 23, 2017)
“The three firearm experts testified that they had only seen this particular ammunition three times: in the Dunning, Kirby, and Lodato murders.”
- Severance v. Commonwealth, Record No. 170829 (July 19, 2018)
“Affirmed.”
- At Severance's trial, Nancy Dunning's son describes finding her dead (October 15, 2015)
“What is wrong? the dispatcher is heard asking. He replied: My wife has been killed.”
- Severance guilty in three high-profile killings in Alexandria (November 2, 2015)
“Our relief today is mixed with anguish that our dad is not here standing beside us, finally feeling the weight of cruel and unfair suspicion being lifted from his shoulders.”
- A serial killer out to terrorize a community, or a wrongly accused man? (October 28, 2015)
“There is absolutely no forensic evidence linking Mr. Severance to any of these crimes, Thomas told the jury.”
- Same gun may have been used in three Alexandria slayings (March 6, 2014)
“The cases appear to be linked, but until we have evidence to point to only one suspect, we investigate all possibilities.”
- Charles Severance 'focus' of investigation into killings (June 21, 2014)
“He looks like the picture, that's what everyone agrees, but then so do other people.”
- Charles Severance indicted on murder charges (September 8, 2014)
“A grand jury in Alexandria on Monday indicted an eccentric former political candidate in the slayings of three prominent residents over the past decade.”
- Alexandria police still trying to solve slaying of Nancy Dunning, sheriff's wife (December 4, 2013)
“We will never put this case on the shelf.”
- 'The Parable of the Knocker' sheds new light on Charles Severance (April 22, 2020)
“One of the central themes in Porter's book is that Jim Dunning was essentially another victim of the serial killer because he went to his grave in 2012 with a cloud of suspicion over his head.”
- Why Alexandria's serial killer chose his victims, their neighborhood (October 15, 2019)
“Hey you want to take my kid away from me? OK, I'll take away your wife away, and we'll see how that feels.”
- Severance trial begins with emotional testimony from survivor (October 8, 2015)
“The bullets used in the three killings are commonly available nationwide and more than a billion such bullets have been produced since the late 1990s.”
- Murder trial pivots to Kirby; Severance's relationship with son's mother explored (October 14, 2015)
“Paramedics thought he had suffered a heart attack before discovering the tiny bullet wounds.”
- Families' Memories Emerge After Verdict in Alexandria Murders (November 9, 2015)
“The last thing he told me was call me if you get lost. I'm truly lost without him.”
- Reclusive Former Sheriff Dies; Mystery of His Wife's Murder Remains Unsolved (July 19, 2012)
“The tragedy is that he lived with this hanging over his head, which is why he moved to South Carolina.”
- Dunning Murder Still A Mystery (December 9, 2008)
“Police have no suspects; just persons of interest.”
- Charles S. Severance arrested in Wheeling, W.Va. (March 14, 2014)
“Severance went to the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin Avenue on the afternoon of Friday, March 7, to request asylum.”
- Friends of Charles Severance Deny He's Shown Following Victim in Surveillance Video (October 22, 2015)
“McKinley, three other friends and Severance's brother all testified that the man in the video is not Severance.”
- Charles Severance Receives Three Life Sentences in Triple-Murder Trial (January 21, 2016)
“Three consecutive life sentences plus 48 years.”
- Charles Severance (serial killer)
“Read for leads only.”