VA, Murder Charge Ends 8 Year Wait, But Questions, Grief Remain
Mark Fenster
Fredericksburg Police Make Arrest in 1994 Homicide
By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 23, 2003; Page C03
More than eight years after Elizabeth Herrington was killed in her
Fredericksburg home, police have made an arrest in their oldest cold
murder case. They also have put a spotlight on a harsher side of life
in this small historic city.
Herrington, a 46-year-old artist who suffered from addiction and
depression, was fighting her way onto her feet after a stay in
Fredericksburg's homeless shelter. She was living in an apartment
complex for people with mental health problems when she was killed
Nov. 3, 1994.
Two months ago, Archie Elmore Talley, a cook who also had been in and
out of the shelter, was charged with first-degree murder in her death.
Talley, 45, has pleaded not guilty. His family says he, too, was
victimized the night of Herrington's death, possibly by the people who
killed her. They say that strangers attacked him in the same
neighborhood because he is gay and black -- and that police did not
pursue his complaint for the same reasons.
Police say Talley and Herrington may have crossed paths in the city of
19,000 people within the smaller community of the needy, whom many
residents don't see as they vanish in the morning into commuter trains
heading north and at night into new subdivisions or the historic
clapboard houses downtown. Both of them were seen that night at
Merriman's, a downtown restaurant and bar popular with a gay
clientele.
But the paths they took there were very different.
Herrington, according to her mother, came from an educated, successful
family of artists, lawyers and businesspeople; her mother is a poet
and retired teacher of creative writing at Northern Virginia Community
College, and Herrington had a master's in studio art from the
University of Texas at Austin. She had wrestled with depression and
addiction and had been hospitalized several times for problems ranging
from a nervous breakdown to a heart attack.
"She was one of those people who you knew had been groomed for a much
different kind of life and was trying to recapture that life," said
Ellyn Hartzler, who was director of the shelter in the 1990s. Between
the shelter and the regional public mental health organization,
Herrington had a lot of support and was living alone when she was
killed in her apartment in a small, neat complex of supervised housing
across from the Rappahannock River.
"She had counselors coming in the morning and at night," said her
mother, Neva Herrington, 76, who lives in Alexandria. "I thought she'd
never been safer."
Talley's path wound through the courts. He was in and out of the
shelter -- and the jail, for drug convictions. Shelter staff members
said he was contentious and confrontational but never violent. "He
sometimes seemed like he had a chip on his shoulder," Hartzler said.
His aunt Joan Washington said he had jobs for years as a fast-food
cook and was working at Friendly's when he was arrested Dec. 23. He
was living with his boyfriend in a boxy apartment building where green
chipped paint and broken outside lights stand out in a downtown
neighborhood that is starting to improve.
Talley told relatives and his attorney that on the night of the
Herrington killing, he was attacked by some "white supremacists" who
were stalking Merriman's, Washington said. He said he ran a few blocks
to the police department and reported the attack, including the fact
that he had overheard his assailants saying they had killed someone.
He said the police didn't pay much attention.
"They didn't do anything with the skinheads because they were mainly
abusing the blacks, so a town like that wouldn't care anyway,"
Washington said.
Doug Perkins, who has been working on the Herrington case for the city
police department since he became a detective in 1996, said he was
aware of Talley's contentions. But Perkins said that there is no
police report on such an incident and that the officers Talley said he
spoke to were not on duty that night. Perkins said he knew nothing
about Talley's alleged attackers mentioning a killing.
"Certainly, we would have looked into that," he said.
Talley's attorney, Mark Murphy, said he was appointed to the case only
a few weeks ago and hadn't reviewed all the evidence, but he confirmed
that Talley told him he was attacked.
Murder is rare in Fredericksburg. In the last decade, there have been
10 homicides, including the unsolved case of another woman who was
killed in December 1994, not long after Herrington's death. Another
woman has been missing since December 1992 in a case police call
suspicious.
Perkins said the case against Talley relies at least partly on
forensic evidence -- including a hair from the crime scene that
matched a DNA sample taken from Talley in a previous drug case.
The hair was submitted to the state DNA lab right away, but
technicians told Fredericksburg police that there was very little data
in the four-year-old statewide DNA databank to compare it with.
Perkins said the hair was resubmitted in 1997, and a match eventually
was made with Talley, making him a suspect.
Murphy has experience with DNA evidence in violent crimes and said
that would be a big part of the trial, which is scheduled for July.
Police never have described publicly how Herrington was killed, nor
will they say what they believe motivated Talley. "I'll just say I
think I know what the motive was," said Perkins, who said he kept
working at the cold case because he wanted to bring Herrington's
family some resolution.
Although Neva Herrington said she is grateful for Perkins's hard work
and hopeful that the right person has been taken off the streets, she
said she gains little peace from Talley's arrest. "I have a hard time
understanding the vengefulness of some victims' families," she said.
"I have no sense of grief being diminished."
Wanting to keep a closer eye on her daughter, Neva Herrington had been
planning in the fall of 1994 to move to Fredericksburg. During their
last visit, a few weeks before Elizabeth was slain, the two went
apartment hunting.