Jury: Exmore man murdered his wife; recommends 38 years
Incident apparently committed in front of two young children in Aug. '05
By CAROL VAUGHN


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Tara Owens




EASTVILLE -- An Exmore man was found guilty here on Thursday of first-degree murder in the brutal 2005 slaying of his young wife, an act apparently committed in front of their two young children.

The jury of six men and six women recommended that Umah "Mo" Owens, 28, be sentenced to 35 years in prison for the murder charge and another three years on a firearm charge.

A circuit judge officially will sentence Owens in the next term of court. The judge's sentence cannot exceed the jury's recommendation.

The verdict came after a three-day trial in which jurors were shown dozens of grisly photographs of the crime scene and the victim, whose body was found beaten, shot and strangled and covered in insect and rodent bites in a Fairview cornfield.

Commonwealth's Attorney Bruce Jones in his closing argument called the crime "a vicious brutal beating, a very personal killing."

Owens sat impassively throughout the trial, dressed in a crisp white shirt and tie. He occasionally appeared to take notes while seated only a few feet away from his victim's mother, who looked shaken and wept softly at times.

Owens was convicted based on circumstantial evidence that he had the opportunity, motive and intent to kill his 22-year-old estranged wife, Tara Mitchell Owens, on Aug. 27, 2005.

Tara Owens' body was found the day after the slaying in a corn field beside her apartment building on U.S. Route 13 near Kiptopeke Elementary School. She had been beaten, shot in the thigh and choked to death, testimony showed.

The gun used in the crime was never found, but a 9 mm bullet and two casings were recovered inside the apartment.

Owens' body was found after police responded to a 911 call from her mother, who had come to visit that Saturday morning to find the apartment door locked and the couple's two young children inside, apparently alone.

Denise Mitchell of Bloxom, Tara Owens' mother, testified Tuesday that she looked in the front window of her daughter's apartment and saw her 15-month-old granddaughter standing in the living room.

When nobody answered the door, Mitchell said she entered the apartment through a window and found it in disarray, with blood stains on the wall, floor and couch, and her daughter missing. She then called 911.

After police arrived, the second child, a five-month-old girl, was discovered lying under a pillow in the living room. Both children were unharmed.

Police later that day discovered Owens' body lying about 6 to 8 feet into the nearby cornfield.

A search by Northampton Sheriff's investigators of Umah Owens' mother's house in Exmore, where he had been living, turned up a key to Tara Owens' apartment.

DNA evidence found under Tara Owens' fingernails was insufficient to make a match to a specific person, but forensic expert, Miriam S. Vanty of the state crime laboratory in Norfolk, testified that it came from a male.

Virginia Beach defense attorney Rodolfo Cejas tried throughout the trial to cast doubt on the reliability of the commonwealth's witnesses, saying that key witnesses had changed their stories over time, and that one -- Umah Owens' friend, Emily Thomas -- was taking prescription painkillers and smoking marijuana when the events she was asked about occurred.

The commonwealth's case hinged on testimony by several of Uman Owens' friends, including Steven Gale, who said he drove Owens to his estranged wife's apartment the night she was killed.

The defense argued that Gale's testimony was unreliable, saying Gale only confessed to taking Owens to his wife's home after nine hours of interrogation after working a full day in construction and after being transported to the city of Chesapeake.

But evidence at the crime scene -- including broken branches on a bush Gale said he backed into while turning his car around the night of the slaying -- matched Gale's story that he had driven Owens' to the apartment.

Gale said he waited in the car listening to music for some time before Owens came back out and they drove away.

Jones called 17 witnesses in all, including forensic experts, officers from the Northampton County Sheriff's Department and Cape Charles Police, Tara Owens' employer and friends of Umah Owens.

Thomas, a friend and the mother of another of Umah Owens' children, testified that he arrived at her home shortly after midnight Saturday morning, showered and slept there.

Thomas also said she posted bail for Owens earlier that week after he was arrested on charges filed by Tara Owens.

Thomas said after Owens was bailed out, he threatened his wife, saying she "was going to get hers."

Tara Owens also had taken out a protective order against her husband that week.

Testimony showed the couple had a tumultuous relationship, including a recent separation and Umah Owens' 2004 arrest and guilty plea on charges of domestic violence.

The victim's former employer, Charlene Willke, a local restaurant owner, said Tara Owens came into work one day earlier during the summer she was covered with "bruises all down her neck" so severe Willke did not allow her to serve the public as a waitress that day.

Willke's son, David Poto, also testified that Tara Owens came to her waitress job numerous times with bruise marks, black eyes, and once with choke marks around her neck, and that she seemed upset after fighting with her husband when he showed up at work one day.

Another key witness, William "Bull" Reid, an inmate in the Northampton County jail, received a lesser charge in his cocaine distribution case in return for testifying about a jailhouse conversation he had with Owens.

Reid said Owens during a card game at the jail confessed to killing his wife by choking -- a detail that police had kept secret. Reid is awaiting sentencing.

Jones said Reid, who has been incarcerated since September 2005, had no way of knowing the cause of death unless Owens told him.

Cejas made motions to strike the evidence and to dismiss the case, and later to declare a mistrial based on the inclusion of Owens' previous arrest warrant and the protective order in the evidence. Judge Glen Tyler denied the motions.

The defense called only one witness, Winston Burton, an inmate at the Northampton County Jail.

Burton testified that he did not see Owens talk with Reid about the murder and that Owens did not talk with Burton about it.

Jones said the defense's theory that the murder could have resulted from a robbery made no sense because of "what didn't happen in the apartment" --there was no forced entry, nothing stolen, no sexual assault, and no kidnapping or molestation of the children.

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If he did it, It should have been life.

I have a pal who is innocent of his murder conviction and he received 50 years.

IF this man is guilty of this crime, 38 years is an insult.

"Another key witness, William "Bull" Reid, an inmate in the Northampton County jail, received a lesser charge in his cocaine distribution case in return for testifying about a jailhouse conversation he had with Owens."

THIS IS THE ONLY THING THAT I DO NOT AGREE WITH. THERE ARE THOSE WILLING TO TESTIFY TO SAVE THEIR OWN ASS.

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The last of all freedoms is the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.
G. W. Allport.

Personally for me coming from another country and our laws, i think 38 years is enough time. Where is the room for redemption?

If i was to want this man to have life then i would be sentencing all those before him with the same. I do not believe a kid going into the prison system should get life for murder. I believe their should be room for REDEMPTION. Therefore i would not want this man to have any more years.

How much is really enough for taking someones life? honestly you could not pay the price. NOTHING is gained i believe, if these people do not have room for redemption.

I only know how i feel about the sentence my friend has, 65 years. As most know he was NOT PRESENT while 2 men lost their lives, but he had knowledge and associated with the men that did kill, he was an active gang member selling drugs into his community, did a lot of things he truly sincerely regreats, and his actions now reflect those thoughts.

17 years later he is doing so much work with the youth in and out of prison. He has so many sorrows for what he has done to many families, many communities and he knows no amount of time in prison will make up for his choices.
He needs to be punished for his part in the crime, but i personally do not believe his sentence is a reflection of what he actually deserved. The ironic thing is that it was a testimony from a heroine addict that sealed his fate. She made a plea bargin with the State at the time, and it is common knowledge she LIED to save her self. Her sentence was reduced from like 350 months to about 36. Who wouldn't say whatever it took to save their own ass in those circumstances? Unless the conversation in taped, i do not hold much faith in these kind of deals.

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The last of all freedoms is the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.
G. W. Allport.

Will be interesting to read some more about this guy...