The Alexandria Assassin: The Strange Descent of Charles Severance

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,640
Most of us answer our front door without really putting much thought into it at all, unless

2
00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:12,000
you're me and you never answered the door unless you're expecting company.

3
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,200
Middle of the day, your own neighborhood, a lot of people just opened the door.

4
00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:23,120
Three people in Alexandria, Virginia, did exactly that between 2003 and 2014 and none of

5
00:00:23,120 --> 00:00:25,040
them walked away from it.

6
00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:50,720
This is the story of the Alexandria Assassin.

7
00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:55,400
Most of the population, myself excluded, will answer the front door without thinking

8
00:00:55,400 --> 00:00:56,880
much about it at all.

9
00:00:56,880 --> 00:00:58,760
Somebody knocks you walk over.

10
00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:00,200
Let's see who it is.

11
00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:03,400
Middle of the day, your own neighborhood, nothing really feels off.

12
00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:05,120
It's probably your neighbor.

13
00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:06,960
You just opened the door.

14
00:01:06,960 --> 00:01:11,760
Three people in Alexandria, Virginia, did exactly that and all three of them are no longer

15
00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:12,920
with us.

16
00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:17,040
The man responsible was Charles Stannard Severance.

17
00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:21,840
What's going to make this case stay lodged in your head is that his starting point looked

18
00:01:21,840 --> 00:01:23,960
completely ordinary.

19
00:01:23,960 --> 00:01:28,800
He was born September 25, 1960 in Fairfax County, Virginia.

20
00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:31,360
His father was a retired Navy admiral.

21
00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:36,560
He grew up in Oakton, attended Robinson Secondary School, and he earned a Bachelor of Science

22
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:41,200
in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 1986.

23
00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:42,680
His dad was a Navy admiral.

24
00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:47,720
He had a UVA engineering degree and grew up in suburban Northern Virginia without any

25
00:01:47,720 --> 00:01:50,240
obvious warning signs.

26
00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:55,280
This is not a serial killer origin story that you hear me tell all the time.

27
00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:59,480
That's kind of a LinkedIn profile and a firm handshake at the company picnic.

28
00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:01,560
That's what kind of vibes this is giving.

29
00:02:01,560 --> 00:02:07,680
After graduation, he landed engineering positions, including a role at Alexandria Wastewater Authority,

30
00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,680
and he couldn't hold a single one of them.

31
00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:15,040
Severance described constant conflicts with authority figures and a deeply held belief that

32
00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:19,400
Severance was simply smarter than everyone else around him.

33
00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:21,880
That belief isn't rare, honestly.

34
00:02:21,880 --> 00:02:26,160
Most people figure out how to keep it quiet during their performance reviews though.

35
00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:28,360
Severance never got there.

36
00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:33,480
By 1988, his family had noticed something shifting in a way that was no longer subtle.

37
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:35,080
He became withdrawn.

38
00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:39,760
He was paranoid and openly hostile toward institutions that had shaped him.

39
00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:45,920
In his 20s, he joined a religious cult and donated nearly everything he earned to that organization.

40
00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:50,120
He eventually left the group with the framework of that group stayed with them.

41
00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:54,360
He was a righteous man surrounded by corrupt forces on all sides.

42
00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:57,920
That idea just needed somewhere new to go.

43
00:02:57,920 --> 00:02:59,480
He tried politics.

44
00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:06,120
In 1996, Severance ran for mayor of Alexandria and for Virginia's eighth congressional district.

45
00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:08,640
Then ran for mayor again in 2000.

46
00:03:08,640 --> 00:03:14,080
Every candidate forum, every public debate, this man walked in wearing a full-length black

47
00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:18,000
cloak and sunglasses every single time.

48
00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:23,040
This is Virginia in August, and Charles Severance is strolling into a public debate looking

49
00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:29,080
like a Victorian antagonist who got significantly lost somewhere around 1887, and apparently

50
00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:33,520
nobody at the League of Women Voters quite knew what the correct protocol was for that

51
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:34,520
situation.

52
00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:39,760
So, they just let him participate, looking like Count Chocula.

53
00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:44,720
His entire platform revolved around what he called the "plague of psychotropic drugs being

54
00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:51,320
administered to children" by a mental health system he described as "state-sponsored terrorism".

55
00:03:51,320 --> 00:03:56,000
Ask him a question about the roads, the city budget, anything else at all, and he found a way

56
00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,920
to bring it back to child psychiatry within about 30 seconds.

57
00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:04,160
The Alexandria Police Department was alarmed enough by his behavior to assign an undercover

58
00:04:04,160 --> 00:04:09,080
officer to shadow his primary opponent during both campaigns.

59
00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:11,040
They're afraid he might do something to him.

60
00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:15,840
At a 1996 League of Women Voters forum, he grabbed an American flag and pointed its

61
00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:20,620
spiked metal finial, you know the pointy thing at the top, directly at Congressman Jim

62
00:04:20,620 --> 00:04:23,560
Moran before running out of the building.

63
00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:29,240
In 2000, he punched out a debate organizer, Rod Cuckro, in the face for trying to enforce

64
00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:30,760
the time limits.

65
00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:35,280
He was assaulting event staff while actively running for elected office.

66
00:04:35,280 --> 00:04:39,320
Alexandria Voters gave him around 8% of their vote.

67
00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:42,680
Then I have questions about that, serious questions.

68
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:44,720
But I'll reserve those for another time.

69
00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:50,720
In July of 1998, Severance met a woman named Tamela Nichols at a square dance in Northern

70
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:51,720
Virginia.

71
00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:55,400
I'm sorry, square dance isn't funny, but it's kind of funny.

72
00:04:55,400 --> 00:05:01,240
By April of 1999, they had a son named Levi, the home they shared, which Severance named

73
00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:06,920
Gunston Manor was a park fair fax townhouse where he kept gas masks and weapons displayed

74
00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:07,920
throughout.

75
00:05:07,920 --> 00:05:12,080
Prepared for an invasion that he was certain was eventually coming.

76
00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:17,440
Nichols left him in early 2000, the court awarded her full custody and denied Severance

77
00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:19,240
any visitation rights.

78
00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:25,240
In March 2001, a judge arranged one final supervised visit with his son Levi, held

79
00:05:25,240 --> 00:05:29,640
in a courtroom with uniform sheriff's deputies present the entire time.

80
00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:33,200
He was not allowed to make physical contact with his son.

81
00:05:33,200 --> 00:05:36,520
Those deputies worked under Alexandria Sheriff James Dunning.

82
00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:40,840
In his diary afterward, Severance wrote, "Can you forgive someone for kidnapping your

83
00:05:40,840 --> 00:05:41,840
child?

84
00:05:41,840 --> 00:05:44,960
Can you murder someone for kidnapping your child?

85
00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:49,840
Everyone connected to Alexandria's court system was now, in his mind, legitimate target

86
00:05:49,840 --> 00:05:53,120
for what he called a family vendetta."

87
00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:58,560
In December 5, 2003, Nancy Dunning was home on Westmount, Ida Avenue.

88
00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:02,040
She was a real estate agent in a deeply loved community fixture.

89
00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:06,200
Someone, her neighbors called the Queen of Del Rey for her years of neighborhood development

90
00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:07,200
work.

91
00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:11,240
She had just returned from Target when someone knocked at her front door.

92
00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:16,360
She answered it and was shot immediately multiple times with a 22 caliber handgun.

93
00:06:16,360 --> 00:06:19,840
Her purse and valuables sat untouched on the counter.

94
00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:24,260
Her husband, the sheriff James Dunning, found her when she didn't show for their scheduled

95
00:06:24,260 --> 00:06:25,360
lunch.

96
00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:27,360
The case went cold fast.

97
00:06:27,360 --> 00:06:30,560
Standard protocol focuses heavily on the spouse at first.

98
00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:31,760
The husband did it.

99
00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:33,320
The boyfriend did it.

100
00:06:33,320 --> 00:06:34,480
Everyone knows that.

101
00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:39,560
And that focus stayed on Jim Dunning far longer than the evidence could support.

102
00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:42,520
Confirmation bias works like this in an investigation.

103
00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:47,280
You settle on a theory early and everything starts being filtered through that lens.

104
00:06:47,280 --> 00:06:51,040
Your possibilities quietly stop receiving that same attention.

105
00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:55,280
Jim Dunning was never formally charged, but he carried that cloud for the rest of his

106
00:06:55,280 --> 00:06:56,280
life.

107
00:06:56,280 --> 00:06:58,560
He died before his name was cleared.

108
00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:00,680
Severance was already gone.

109
00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:06,080
For close to 10 years, Severance drove across the country in a Ford Escort, spending extended

110
00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:10,840
time in Hagerstown and then Cumberland, Maryland, where he ran a makeshift hostel out of his

111
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:15,000
home and charged travelers almost nothing to stay there.

112
00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:20,160
People from that time period remembered him as "generous" and "com" - his family recognized

113
00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:26,120
something his Cumberland neighbors could not see - a man in steady decline who refused every

114
00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:28,120
form of help.

115
00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:33,300
During those years, he became consumed by the French and Indian War, specifically General

116
00:07:33,300 --> 00:07:35,960
Edward Braddock's failed campaigns.

117
00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:40,840
Inframed his own life as a modern partisan, fighting a corrupt ruling class.

118
00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:45,360
He filled two composition notebooks with what prosecutors would eventually call "the

119
00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:47,160
manifesto of hate."

120
00:07:47,160 --> 00:07:53,120
Inside them, he had rewritten a new testament parable into a step-by-step murder procedure.

121
00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:58,000
Knock, talk, enter, kill, exit, murder.

122
00:07:58,000 --> 00:07:59,600
He called this wisdom.

123
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:02,880
He encouraged readers to practice on mannequins.

124
00:08:02,880 --> 00:08:08,160
Wrote about assassinating the enforcement class and described home killings as "tomahocking

125
00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:09,720
the homestead."

126
00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:16,120
He was composing a murder manual while touring historical battlefields for inspiration.

127
00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:23,180
On November 11, 2013, Ronald Kirby, a 69-year-old transportation planner in Alexandria's

128
00:08:23,180 --> 00:08:28,760
Rosemont neighborhood, answered a knock at his front door and was then shot multiple times.

129
00:08:28,760 --> 00:08:31,400
His wallet and his wedding ring were still on him.

130
00:08:31,400 --> 00:08:36,680
A plumber arrived shortly after and reported seeing an older, grey bearded man in the area.

131
00:08:36,680 --> 00:08:40,840
But the link to the decade-old Dunning case wasn't yet clear.

132
00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:47,760
On February 6, 2014, Ruth Ann Lodato, a 59-year-old music teacher, answered a knock at her rich

133
00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:49,840
road home and was killed.

134
00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:54,960
Her mother's caretaker, Janet Franco, was also shot during the attack but survived.

135
00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:58,280
And her description of the gunman was specific enough to matter.

136
00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:05,160
Older white male, balding, grey hair, grey beard, messy hair, dressed oddly for the weather.

137
00:09:05,160 --> 00:09:10,080
That description produced a composite sketch and the sketch led investigators to Charles

138
00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:11,200
Severance.

139
00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:16,760
When Alexandria detectives left the business card at Severance's residence in March 2014,

140
00:09:16,760 --> 00:09:22,200
his response was to bicycle to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., dressed in a

141
00:09:22,200 --> 00:09:28,320
syrape and a three-cornered hat and formally request the political asylum from the city of

142
00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:30,000
Alexandria.

143
00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:35,280
He asked Vladimir Putin's government to protect him from a Virginia family court.

144
00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:40,200
This man peddled a bicycle to the Russian Embassy dressed like a character from a different

145
00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:42,080
century entirely.

146
00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:49,040
Walked in and asked Russia to protect him from a domestic relations court in Northern Virginia.

147
00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:50,920
This was 2014.

148
00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:54,160
This happened on an actual day in real life.

149
00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:59,280
The secret service photographed him and clocked a distinctive yellow strap on his bicycle

150
00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:00,280
handlebars.

151
00:10:00,280 --> 00:10:05,000
He was, by the way, denied asylum and he fled to Wheeling, West Virginia.

152
00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:11,080
On March 13, 2014, a Wheeling police officer spotted a bicycle with that same yellow strap

153
00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:16,520
outside the Ohio County Public Library, walked inside and found Severance at a public computer

154
00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:17,520
terminal.

155
00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:22,520
He was arrested on a felony weapons charge and murder charges followed shortly after.

156
00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:24,840
The trial moved to Fairfax County.

157
00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:29,600
Without the murder weapon, prosecutors built the case on Severance's own journals, ballistics

158
00:10:29,600 --> 00:10:35,400
connecting all three crime scenes, Janet Franco's eyewitness accounts and surveillance footage.

159
00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:40,680
The defense argued his paranoid schizo-typal personality disorder explained his writings

160
00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:43,560
without meeting the legal standard for insanity.

161
00:10:43,560 --> 00:10:45,680
The jury convicted him on everything.

162
00:10:45,680 --> 00:10:50,640
Two life sentences without parole for the murders of Ruth Ann Ladato and Ronald Kirby plus

163
00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:53,720
a third life sentence for the murder of Nancy Dunning.

164
00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:58,720
That sentencing, given a final chance to speak, Charles Severance delivered a theological

165
00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:04,040
lecture on 16th century Church of England doctrine regarding the legality of carrying

166
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:05,680
weapons.

167
00:11:05,680 --> 00:11:07,960
Nothing resembling remorse.

168
00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:12,120
Commonwealth Attorney Brian Porter later wrote a book about the case called "The Parable

169
00:11:12,120 --> 00:11:13,360
of the Nocker."

170
00:11:13,360 --> 00:11:17,160
The victim families became prominent gun violence prevention advocates.

171
00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:21,640
A stretch of Mount Vernon Avenue was named the Nancy Dunning Garden and Jim Dunning's

172
00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:26,280
family received the clearance they had waited over a decade to hear.

173
00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:31,440
Three people answered their doors on ordinary days in a city that had no idea someone had been

174
00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,560
working through a list for 11 years.

175
00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:39,560
In the end, what called Charles Severance was a yellow strap on his bicycle and a trip

176
00:11:39,560 --> 00:11:44,840
to the Russian Embassy in a tricorn hat that no government on Earth was ever going to

177
00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:50,840
honor.

178
00:11:50,840 --> 00:11:58,440
Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime Stories.

179
00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:04,040
Hello, I'm Joe, I'm the host, and here's an email, subject you've ruined other podcasts,

180
00:12:04,040 --> 00:12:05,040
a little.

181
00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:09,240
Hey Joe, not even exaggerating, but your show has made me less patient with podcasts

182
00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:13,520
that's been 20 minutes warming up before they even get to the topic.

183
00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:16,320
Yours gets moving quickly without feeling robotic about it.

184
00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:21,840
In question, what's something small that instantly makes you stop listening to a podcast?

185
00:12:21,840 --> 00:12:23,360
Lena and Richmond, Virginia.

186
00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:26,000
And I'll tell you Lena, there are two things.

187
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:27,480
First of all, it's bad audio.

188
00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:31,960
You don't need a fantastic microphone to do a podcast, but you need one that is right

189
00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:33,880
for your environment.

190
00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:37,600
If you buy the wrong microphone and you sit in the wrong room, it's going to sound

191
00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:40,120
hella echoey and nobody wants to hear that.

192
00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:41,400
So that's the first one.

193
00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:45,080
And the second one is talking about yourself too much.

194
00:12:45,080 --> 00:12:49,000
Well, for the most part, unless you're some big character, some big personality, they're

195
00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:52,840
checking out your podcast to hear the story that you've promised them.

196
00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:57,520
Not here you rambulant about, you know, 8, 9, 10 of the things about your life and all

197
00:12:57,520 --> 00:12:58,520
of that.

198
00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:02,840
I'm genuinely interested in the personal lives of different hosts of podcasts, but if

199
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:05,920
you've drawn on about it too much, I check out.

200
00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:08,160
Thanks for listening Lena and thank you for the email.

201
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:11,720
Hey, if you're a brand new listener, you listening to me right now.

202
00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:15,400
If this is one of your first times listening to this podcast, welcome.

203
00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:20,120
Be sure that you hit subscribe right now wherever you're listening, hit subscribe and also

204
00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:21,760
go to 10 minute murder.com.

205
00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:25,520
You'll find links to where you can follow the show on social media.

206
00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:27,400
If you like the show, you've been listening for a while.

207
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:29,200
I really appreciate you.

208
00:13:29,200 --> 00:13:33,680
Make sure you engage with the content on social media, share this podcast with your friends

209
00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:34,680
and your family.

210
00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:36,560
That's how the show grows is when you share it.

211
00:13:36,560 --> 00:13:39,360
You tell other people about 10 minute murder.

212
00:13:39,360 --> 00:13:43,800
And quickly let me remind you if you like longer episodes of podcasts where I don't ramble

213
00:13:43,800 --> 00:13:48,840
and talk about myself, but I talk a lot about the case, my, and sometimes my opinions on the

214
00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:49,840
stories.

215
00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:51,800
You can listen to my other podcast.

216
00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:54,120
It's called True Crime Blueprint.

217
00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:57,600
You can find a link for that in the episode notes of this episode.

218
00:13:57,600 --> 00:13:58,600
And that's going to do it.

219
00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:00,280
That's your episode for today.

220
00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:03,640
Thank you again for listening to 10 minute murder.

221
00:14:03,640 --> 00:14:04,080
See you next time.

222
00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:14,080
[Music]