VIRGINIA BEACH – The Commonwealth decided Monday to quit pursuing all charges against Raymond Lewis Perry, the remaining defendant on trial for killing off-duty Norfolk police officer Victor Decker.
Perry was charged with capital murder in the October, 2010, robbery and murder. Decker’s body was found near his pickup truck in a remote parking lot near a go-go club. He’d been there earlier with friends and they parted ways at closing. He’d been shot once in the head. His gun and wallet were taken. The officer was married and had a new baby.
The case had been cold nearly two years when police charged Perry – a federal inmate – based on a cadre of jailhouse snitches who told a judge they were hoping to trade their testimony against Perry for breaks on their sentences.
In a jailhouse interview with NewsChannel 3 when he was first charged, Perry said he did not kill the officer. He said inmates were trying to get breaks for themselves by telling lies about him.
Police also charged a second man, Kareem Turner, with the same crime. Earlier this year, prosecutors dropped charges against Turner because defense attorneys discovered a key snitch had lied. Stolle, the top prosecutor, said that revelation led him to quit the case against Turner, but said at the time had other testimony and evidence that still implicated Perry. Even so, he agreed to drop the Commonwealth's pursuit of the death penalty.
Prosecutors said Monday that they lost faith in the bevy of jailhouse snitches who told them Perry was the killer. It was then they realized they didn't have enough to prove their case.
The top prosecutor says he believes the two right men were charged and he will concentrate on rebuilding the case against them.
That’s why the charges were officially Nolle Prossed, which means they could be brought against Perry again.
The defense says police got the wrong men and they are hoping the investigation eventually points to the real killers, not the two they say were charged wrongly.
Raymond Perry will not be freed because he is serving a virtual life sentence on federal robbery charges.
Related:
- Today on NewsChannel 3 – Mike Mather talks to accused killer of Victor Decker
- Accused killer of Victor Decker offers to take lie-detector test
- Man charged in Decker murder appeared in court today
- UPDATE: Court date for man charged in death of off-duty Norfolk police officer
- Man charged in the 2010 murder of Officer Victor Decker
- Prosecutors want death penalty for man accused of killing officer Victor Decker
- Trial to start next year for man accused of killing Norfolk officer
- Lawyers expand search for potential lying witnesses in Decker case
- Jury may never know results of accused cop killer’s lie detector test
- New details released in Officer Decker murder
- Slain officer’s text messages will be evidence at murder trial
- Beach judge refuses lie-detector evidence in Decker murder case
- Lie Detector: Accused cop-killer didn’t do it
- Beach prosecutors withdraw death penalty in cop-killing trial
- Lawyers sat on information for months that could have freed man accused of murder
- No physical, forensic evidence tying anyone to Victor Decker’s murder
- Sources: Charges to be dropped against man accused of Norfolk officer’s murder
- New detailed timeline released of Decker murder
- Defense attorney says Decker murder trial witnesses have been coordinating testimonies
- Attorney: Murdered Norfolk officer had a ‘darker side’
