VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — In the late 1980s, James King attended a wedding in Ohio, and later that night, he brutally murdered the mother of the bride. He served 20 years for that murder, after which, he moved to Virginia.
King didn't stay out of trouble for long: he was arrested for the violent assault of a woman in Virginia Beach in 2018. But in that trial, the previous murder from Ohio was not allowed to be used in court, and served a 12-month sentence for assault and battery.
Less than two years later, King killed again. This time, the victim was Lexie Walters, where the violent rape and murder at a Virginia Beach Days Inn was eerily similar to the Ohio murder from the 1980s. He was convicted and given two life sentences.
But due to a Virginia law, called the conditional release for geriatric prisoners, offered the potential in 2025 — five years after Lexie's murder — for King to get parole.
