Saving the life of an innocent Virginia Belle

Epilogue to Chapter Nineteen

© Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

January 14, 1995: Susan showed up at our Sunday School class again. For a change, she sat down beside me.

“Hey handsome! When is Cindy moving in with you?”

“She’s not, Susan . . . she headed to prison or in prison. On December 16, she was arrested for being a big drug dealer and heroin addict. The Commonwealth’s Attorney said in the newspaper that she will be an old woman when she gets out of prison.”

“Richard, she is no drug dealer. In fact, I wouldn’t have known that she even smoked pot, if you hadn’t told me. I checked her out thoroughly, after the first time you stayed with her. You do know that practically all the young college graduate women in Virginia smoke pot?”

“What? Susan, how did you know that? I don’t see you for weeks or months at a time, but you know everything I am doing. Are you an angel or something?” Susan didn’t answer.

“Tell you what Pooky Bear, I will check into it. Let’s go over the copy center on Powers Ferry and make me a copy of the newspaper article. Maybe we can at least get her reduced to a couple of years. She is no hardened criminal. My goodness, Vivi smokes pot all the time, when she is not around you.

March 5, 1995: Susan showed up in Sunday School again and sat on the other side of Juliana. She told me to tell Juliana that I had to prepare for a presentation that evening.

After Sunday School, Juliana invited her to join us for lunch. After lunch, Juliana whispered to me, “Richard, you should ask out that pretty blond girl, Susan. I can tell that she really likes you. She says that she likes to be out in nature like you. Who knows? You might like her better in bed, too.” Juliana had no clue that Susan and I had known each other Biblically for four years.

Susan came by my roundette after sunset. She said that Cindy was totally innocent. She had been framed by several people. The Northwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force had scheduled the raid on Cindy’s house, two weeks before Cindy was arrested. The marijuana “bales” were actually stained wood excelsior.

Susan had interviewed a graduate student in Criminal Justice at George Mason University, who was hired as a Temp Employee to investigate Cindy’s case. She was instructed to prove that Cindy’s alibi was a lie . . . namely that a woman with dark hair and a polka dot dress, parked next to her, begged her to take her to her mother’s house in Springfield, Virginia, because she needed an insulin shot to her mother and her car wouldn’t start.

Within a couple of minutes at the Georgetown University Special Police, the student employee found absolute proof that Cindy was telling the complete truth. I will show the surveillance images below.

Cindy dropped off the woman at a house in Springfield and then went onto I-95/I-395 to get to I-66, which would take her to the Shenandoah Valley. Shortly after entering the expressway, she was rammed by two Virginia Highway Patrol armored cruisers. This did a serious shock to the part of her brain that was healing, plus broke her left hand. Immediately after that black-clad stormtroopers surrounded her wrecked car and pointed high powered weapons. All were shouting, “Get out of the car, get out of the car, or we’ll shoot.” In fact, one stormtrooper did fire his M-16 into the door, grazing her leg. She started screaming and crying.

Someone in a car nearby was evidently an FBI agent. He hollered, “Get away from her you bastards. She is just a scared college girl. You’ve hurt her.” He then stood in front of the driver’s door to protect her and called for paramedics.

Her legs had gone into spasms. Once the stormtroopers had yanked her out of the car like she was a murderer, the paramedics put her on a cart. The cops told them that she was just some druggie bitch on heroin. Unfortunately, the paramedics believed them and gave her an antidote for heroin poisoning. Her heart stopped several times. They first took her to Springfield Medical Center then after her body stabilized, they took her to the medical wing of the Fairfax Jail.

The cops who attacked her car found a bag under the side of the passenger seat, with joints and marijuana in it. They’re claiming that it was a much large volume than such a bag could carry. They also interpreted the brain medicine in her purse as being illegal controlled substances, so she is charged with about a dozen drug related felonies by the Feds, plus DUI and resisting arrest. I don’t what terrible things happened to her in the court system, but it had to be one of the most outrageous cases of framing an innocent person I have ever seen. The Monday after she was attacked, the Commonwealth of Virginia seized her townhouse, furniture, personal belongings and all moneys in her bank accounts.

I cannot penetrate any farther into the Commonwealth Attorney’s office or even get an explanation why she is in a medium security federal prison. Please get these photographs to William Leeson, the senior law professor at American University, who you worked with in Georgetown. Tell him that he will be contacted by Cindy’s father. Then also mail copies of these images to Cindy’s father and tell him to immediately contact Leeson at American University. Do not use the phone with her father. It is tapped by the VBI . . . supposedly because he is a cocaine dealer, but actually because they are getting information for the state Republican Party.

I never heard back from either Professor Leeson or Cindy’s father, so I never knew if these images did any good. They speak for themselves.

Images from the Georgetown University surveillance cameras