Lewis' crime remembered nearly eight years after double shooting

CHATHAM — For Pittsylvania County Commonwealth Attorney David Grimes, several grisly details about the Teresa Lewis case stick out in his mind nearly eight years after the double murder.

Chief among them is what she did after the crimes had been committed and the two triggermen had left.

“She was alone in the home with her dying husband and stepson and she waited,” he said. “She waited and she waited and even called two people before she called the police.”

Also during that time, Lewis wrote her husband a short decoy note and attached it to a fake bag lunch for him she made as part of an attempt to throw off suspicion, he said.

On Sept. 23, Lewis is set to be the first woman executed in the U.S. since 2005 and the first in Virginia since 1912. She was given two death sentences for hiring two men to kill her husband, Julian Clifton Lewis Jr., and her stepson, Charles J. Lewis.

The two were murdered in their Pittsylvania County trailer the night of Oct. 30, 2002.

Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller were sentenced to life in prison for shooting the men in their beds. Authorities said Lewis was the mastermind and that the three were to share in the proceeds from her stepson’s life-insurance policy and her husband’s estate.

Shallenberger committed suicide in 2006 while an inmate at Wallens Ridge State Prison.

For some of those involved in prosecuting the case and those closest to Lewis, the impending execution crystallizes certain memories for them.

The first time Fuller ever held a gun was when he and Shallenberger went to a makeshift target range in the middle of the woods to practice using the weapons. Shallenberger showed Fuller how to shoot the shotgun, Grimes said.

The next time was when he went into the room where her son, C.J., was sitting awake on his bed listening to music, he said.

After spraying Lewis with several rounds, Fuller went back to kitchen to report that his victim wasn’t dead.

Upon hearing that, Teresa Lewis, handed the shotgun back to Fuller and instructed him to finish the job, Grimes said.

“She’s someone utterly without conscience as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Grimes dismisses those who cite Lewis’ limited mental capacity as a reason she shouldn’t be executed.

“To say she’s incapable of understanding is a desperate attempt,” he said. “I’m not saying she had mind control over the men, but she was definitely a leader in it.”

For Vic Ingram, a retired investigator and polygraph examiner for the Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Office, the nature of the crime is what struck him.

“There’s just no other way to describe it,” he said. “It was a cold and brutal execution.”

Ingram was the first person that Lewis confessed her crime to, but it could have gone either way, he said.

The first time Ingram met Lewis, it was before she had been formally charged and she had volunteered to take a polygraph test.

It was the first day after the crime and Ingram determined Lewis was taking medication and had a limited amount of sleep, not ideal conditions for a polygraph subject. Ingram said he sent her home on ethical grounds and told her to come back the next day.

It was during that next interview she opened up to him, he said.

“If she hadn’t come back for that second interview, I would have regretted it,” he said. “I’ve always been glad I did the right thing, but it could have been a hindrance to this case.”

As for people who knew Teresa Lewis before the crime, several declined to comment because of the pain and deep sense of betrayal Lewis caused.

“She was raising her hand and praising the Lord even after he (Julian) was dead,” said Debbie Yeatts. “I thought she was my friend, but she used and deceived us all.”

Yeatts is described in court documents as Lewis’ best friend, but wished to be identified only as an “acquaintance.”

While Lewis’ execution brings an end to the case, which has stretched for almost eight years, it doesn’t bring respite for the victims’ family, Grimes said.

“There’s no joy in any of this,” he said. “If someone could turn back the clock, these were good men who were killed.”