2/7/2021 CASEY: Bill Stanley is right — Virginia should abolish the death penalty | Latest Headlines | roanoke.com
CASEY: Bill Stanley is right — Virginia should abolish the death
penalty
The state senator from Franklin County and | don't agree on much. But it's hard not to
admire his opposition to capital punishment. Here's a story about how | arrived at the
same conclusion.
Dan Casey Feb 6, 2021
Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, has made some waves in Richmond with his support of abolishing Virginia's
death penalty.
BOB BROWN, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Dan Casey
Sen. Bill Stanley and yours truly will never be members of a mutual-admiration society.
On occasion I’ve criticized the Franklin County Republican. On others, I’ve poked fun at
him.
bill-stanley ht hould-abolish-the-death-ps y »_f1 fbbc64-67e7-11eb-bdde-539eb609c045.htm! 1/6
217/2021 CASEY: Bill Stanley is right — Virginia should abolish the death penalty | Latest Headlines | roanoke.com
Many years ago, I bestowed Stanley with a Dano Award for glaring public stupidity, in
the category “Best Gun Threat by an Elected Official.” That was after he warned a
colleague of mine about prying into where he lived — lest the reporter get “a face full of
my Glock” or something like that.
This year, Stanley has made some waves in Richmond with his full-throated support of
abolishing Virginia’s death penalty. He’s the only Republican senator who’s dared to
stick his neck out on that issue.
He’s right, and courageous for doing so. For that Stanley deserves credit. So let’s give
him some.
Though opposition to capital punishment is an atypical position for a conservative, it
shouldn’t be. Aren’t conservatives wary of government overreach? Legally sanctioned
executions are the ultimate act of state power over an individual, and a permanent
deprivation of freedom.
Stanley’s most powerful argument against capital punishment is its permanency. When
and if mistakes are made by our legal system — big and little ones happen every day —
they can’t be rectified for a wrongfully convicted inmate who’s already been executed.
Here’s a little story about what led me to the same conclusion as the senator.
It begins one night in June 1971 — I was 12 at that time. About 10:30 p.m., two masked
robbers walked into a 7-Eleven store in Glen Burnie, Maryland, with long-barreled
revolvers. As they robbed the joint, a customer, Charles Erdman, walked in.
Erdman and his wife had 10 kids. She’d asked him to pick up a gallon of milk for
breakfast the next morning.
With the holdup in progress, he confronted the robbers and told them to leave.
Otherwise, he said, they would ruin their lives. One of the robbers shot Erdman in the
abdomen. The bullet pierced his aorta and he died before an ambulance got him to the
nearest hospital
bill-stanley ht hould-abolish-the-death-ps ty! »_f1 fbbc64-67e7-11eb-bdde-539eb609c045.htm! 216
2/7/2021 CASEY: Bill Stanley is right — Virginia should abolish the death penalty | Latest Headlines | roanoke.com
Meanwhile, the killers ran off. The store clerk couldn’t identify either because they wore
ski masks.
The case went unsolved for more than 18 months, despite a $5,000 reward that 7-Eleven
offered.
Then, in February 1973, homicide detective George Romine found a witness. Her name
was Linda Packech. And she later testified that she was in the store’s parking lot that
night, walking toward the door. She needed a pack of cigarettes.
From outside, Packech heard a shot. Then she saw two men with guns bolt through the
store’s door. One of them stopped briefly and looked around as he emerged. And, he
took off his ski mask.
She recognized that guy, she said. His name was Guy Gordon Marsh. Packech had
known him for about five years because they ran in the same bad crowd of drug addicts
and small-time thieves in the Glen Burnie area.
Packech made these statements, some 20 months after the crime, following her arrest on
heroin charges. As you might imagine, those later got dropped.
Based on her claims, Marsh and his roommate, Richard Cirasole, were arrested and
charged in the crime. They went to trial in July 1973, but immediately there was a major
hiccup with the case.
The state dropped the charges against Cirasole immediately before trial — after his
attorney showed punch-clock records indicating he was working the second shift that
night at a General Motors plant north of Baltimore. It was miles away from the 7-Eleven,
which was south of the city.
But the trial proceeded against Marsh. It lasted only a day or two — I still have the
transcript. Packech was the only witness who could identify Marsh. Among other things,
she testified to the clothing he wore, and his distinctive shoes.
bill-stanley ht hould-abolish-the-death-ps ty! »_f1 fbbc64-67e7-11eb-bdde-539eb609c045.htm! 3/6
217/2021 CASEY: Bill Stanley is right — Virginia should abolish the death penalty | Latest Headlines | roanoke.com
Those details were consistent with the testimony of the store clerk, who couldn’t identify
either robber because of their masks. Besides Packech’s testimony, there was no other
evidence tying Marsh to the crime.
When Marsh took the stand in his own defense, he did himself no favors. Fueled by
outrage, he loudly, angrily and profanely accused the police, prosecutor and Packech of
framing him. At one point he mused whether his court-appointed attorney was involved,
too. The lawyer’s name was Vernon Frame.
Jurors deliberated barely 15 minutes before finding Marsh guilty. It seemed like an
open-and-shut case. The judge sentenced him to life plus 10 years — the latter sentence
was for the robbery.
Notably, Marsh escaped a death sentence. That’s because, while Maryland had the death
penalty on its books in 1971 (the year of the crime) the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated
capital punishment in 1972. And the trial didn’t occur until 1973.
Flash forward 12 years, to 1985. Marsh was still in prison, of course. I was a greenhorn
police reporter at The Maryland Gazette, a twice-weekly newspaper in Glen Burnie. And
one day, a woman named Bette walked in the newspaper’s door.
She was a divorcee in her 40s who worked for the federal government. Somehow, she
and Marsh had developed a pen pal relationship that turned romantic despite the bars
between them. Bette was absolutely convinced Marsh was innocent.
She bought an ad in the paper offering a cash award for information leading to the real
killers of Charles Erdman, 14 years earlier. After the ad salesman took down the
information he needed, he introduced Bette to me. She persuaded me to look into the
case.
Over the next two years I did, here and there. And ultimately, I hit pay dirt with some
old court records. Those showed that 30 days before the murder, Linda Packech had
been sentenced to 60 days in jail on a petty theft charge.
bill-stanley ht hould-abolish-the-death-ps ty! »_f1 fbbc64-67e7-11eb-bdde-539eb609c045.htm! 46
217/2021 CASEY: Bill Stanley is right — Virginia should abolish the death penalty | Latest Headlines | roanoke.com
The jail’s records indicated Packech served 45 of those 60 days. Which strongly
suggested she was in jail the night of Erdman’s murder, rather than right there at the 7-
Eleven store.
One night in 1987, I knocked on her door. She lived with her parents, and her dad
answered. My demeanor was more confrontational than diplomatic — and her father
sicced his dog on me, so I left.
The next day, I called Packech at her workplace, a flower shop. We met at a bar for
drinks that night. At first, she lied smoothly and easily. A narcotics detective had signed
her out of jail that night to make buys for him, she claimed. That’s how she could have
been at the 7-Eleven.
But as the night wore on, I realized that made little sense. That narcotics detective
wouldn't have let Packech out of his sight, if he was responsible for returning her to jail.
He also would have been in the store parking lot. And there was nothing in the evidence
like that.
As we were saying our goodbyes in the bar’s parking lot, I called Packech out on that
stuff. Suddenly, tears welled in her eyes and she began weeping. And she told me the real
story.
After her heroin arrest in 1973, Romine had approached Packech, rather than the other
way around. He told her he needed some help with testimony in a cold case. He
promised to help her collect the reward 7-Eleven was offering. (He did. She later got
$2,500 because the other robber was never identified. In 1973, you could buy a new VW
Beetle for less.)
Romine fed Packech the necessary details, such as the time, date and place of the
murder, and what the robbers wore, and he instructed her to identify Marsh. Who, as it
turned out, was 100% right when he profanely shouted in court he was being framed.
Marsh’s conviction was overturned in 1987, and he was freed after 14 years in prison for
a crime he didn’t commit. Packech ended up in prison for perjury. By 1987, Romine was
dead.
bill-stanley ht hould-abolish-the-death-ps ty! »_f1 fbbc64-67e7-11eb-bdde-539eb609c045.htm! 5/6
217/2021 CASEY: Bill Stanley is right — Virginia should abolish the death penalty | Latest Headlines | roanoke.com
But for the U.S. Supreme Court’s invalidation of capital punishment in 1972, Marsh
would have gotten the death penalty. And he would have been forgotten long ago, and
you wouldn’t be reading this column.
That’s how I became unalterably opposed to capital punishment. It’s way, way too final a
penalty in a justice system that’s imperfect at best, and occasionally corrupt at worst.
It feels good to have politicians like Bill Stanley recognize this. He and I know we’re on
the side of the angels.
ty! »_f1 fbbc64-67e7-11eb-bdde-539eb609c045.htm! 6/6
bill-stanl ht: hould-abolish-the-death:
y Pt
