Every Town - Murders of Teresa Lewis - First Woman Executed in a Century - Danville, VA

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Danville, Virginia native Teresa Lewis wanted insurance money at all costs. Using her sexual prowess and committing adultery in a twisted plot to kill her husband and stepson in 2002. It's a true crime story we've seen before, But beyond Virgina, and even the states, Teresa’s case became a worldwide sensation because she was sentenced to death in 2010, becoming the first female inmate to die by lethal injection in the state of Virginia since Virginia Christian’s death by electric chair in 1912.🥇 Watch This Episode on Youtube! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyrfzPl96nw&ab_channel=ScaryMysteries🎉 Patreon (videos too hot for youtube) -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVtrLuIxoI🎧 More Podcasts, we got you - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579 Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

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There's also two other videos that come out on our YouTube channel. each and every Monday and Wednesday, where we cover strange and creepy stories from all around the world. Those can also be listened to in podcast form on our other podcast channel called Scary Mysteries. We have tons of cool content for you all around. Thanks so much for the support and tuning in. Hope you enjoy the episode. Every town has a dark side. Today, we're headed to Danville, Virginia, where we learn about Teresa Lewis.

and the murders are Virginia's first woman to be executed in a century. There have been a number of real-life horror stories of people who murdered, motivated largely to reap life insurance benefits. Danville, Virginia native, Teresa Lewis, was one of them, using her sexuality and committing adultery in a twisted plot to kill her husband and stepson back in 2002. But beyond Virginia, and even the state, Teresa's case became a worldwide sensation because she was sentenced to death in 2010 and became the first female inmate to die by lethal injection in the state of Virginia since Virginia Christian's death by electric chair back in 1912.

Hi, I'm Andrew Fitzgerald, once again bringing you a fresh episode of every town. Should a modern nation be in the business of killing its citizens or not? A pivotal debate over capital punishment became an offshoot of Teresa Lewis's September 23rd, 2010 execution by lethal injection owing to her gender as well as questions about her mental capacity. So how did she make history as the 12th woman to be executed in the United States since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976 and the first woman to die by lethal injection in Virginia in 100 years. Living in poverty marked the growing up years

of Teresa Wilson Bean Lewis in the independent city of Danville in the Commonwealth of Virginia where she was born on April 26, 1969. The family's needs, including Teresa's education, were sustained by both parents working at a textile mill. When going to school as a young girl,

Teresa spent her free time singing in a church choir but it was also in church that she met a man and married him after dropping out of school at the age of 16 in 1985. Their union bore a daughter named Christy Bean, yet having a child didn't save the marriage from heading to Splitsville. After the divorce, Teresa's life was indulgems as she turned to alcohol and painkillers. Her mother-in-law even described Teresa as,

Not Right. For more than a decade, Teresa and her daughter survived by jumping from one low-paying job to another just to make ends meet. But in March or April of 2000, luck came Teresa's way in more ways than one. She found a more stable job at the Dan River Textile Mill in Danville, a historic manufacturer of apparel fabrics and home fashion products such as bedding. However, the company established in 1882 was sold in 2006, Working at the textile mill didn't only provide Teresa a means to support herself and her daughter economically,

but it also opened a door for a second chance at romance. There, she met Julian Lewis Jr., her supervisor, and they soon elevated their relationship but notch higher as they became lovers. In January of 2000, Julian became a widower when he lost his wife to a lingering illness, which left him with his three adult children, Jason, Charles, and Ken. Kathy. Three months later in June of 2000, Teresa and her now 16-year-old daughter Christy moved into Julian's home. Soon after that, Teresa and Julian tied to knot, and she quit her job at Dan River. Life seemed going well for the blended family, that is, until tragedy struck in December of 2001.

Julian's son, Jason, died in a car accident that left Julian with Jason's $200,000 life insurance proceeds. The father placed an account with prudential securities that only he could access. In February of 2002, Julian purchased five acres of land and a mobile home in Pennsylvania County, Virginia, where he and Teresa began to live. Six months later in August, Julian's younger son, Charles, an army reservist, was required to report for active duty with the National Guard. Prior to his deployment to Iraq as part of the U.S. Army Reserve, Charles made estate arrangements, including executing a will and obtaining a $250,000 life insurance policy. He designated his dad, Julian, as the primary beneficiary, and his stepmom, Teresa, as his secondary beneficiary.

Growing up, impoverished and struggling for many years to earn a decent living, Teresa saw this as an opportunity for financial gain. Unfortunately, she was powered by greed, which everyone knows can lure the weak to a deadly end, just like what happened to Teresa Lewis. A dark and promiscuous side of Teresa unraveled in the fall of 2002. The 32-year-old married woman met two young men at a Walmart store in Danville, 22-year-old Matthew Schallenberger, and 19-year-old Rodney Fuller. Despite the age gap, Teresa began to start.

sexual relationship with Matthew. In one occasion, she even performed a lingerie show for both Matthew and Rodney, and later on engaged in sex with both young men. As if this wasn't filthy enough, Teresa on one occasion took her teenage daughter, Christy Wither, to meet up with the two guys in a parking lot. She introduced her daughter to Rodney, and the public place became the venue of their sexual indiscretions. Well, the daughter was having sex with Rodney, and she was having sex with Rodney, a guy she had just met in one car. The mother was doing the same with Matthew and another vehicle. Sex became Teresa's weapon and enticing Matthew and Rodney to be her co-conspirators in her grand evil scheme. Murder of her husband, Julian, and her stepson Charles for the insurance money.

Teresa and Matthew first planned a plot to kill Julian and discussed sharing the money she would get upon his death. On October 23, 2002, Teresa did a bank withdrawal amounting to $1,200 to be used in purchasing the necessary guns and ammunition for murdering Julian. Teresa informed Matthew and Rodney the route Julian would take going home from work that evening. The plot sounded like a scene lifted from a run-of-the-mill crime movie. The two young men would stop and kill Julian on the roadway and make the murder look like a highway robbery. But their plan would be a plan was foiled because of the presence of another vehicle running alongside Julian on his way home, which made it impossible for the two to execute the shooting of their target.

Determined, though, to carry out their murder plan, Teresa and her cohorts hatched a second plan to slay Julian. Thinking ahead, they also planned to kill Charles when he would come home for his father's funeral. Then, they would share the proceeds from his insurance policy as well, But their plan changed quickly when Teresa learned that Charles would visit his dad and stepmother at their mobile home on October 23rd through the 30th of 2002 while he was away from his army training in Maryland. A decision then was made by Teresa, Matthew, and Rodney, murder, both father and son at the exact same time. The master plan for committing the double murder of Julian and Charles Lewis was to take place in the early morning.

hours of October 30, 2002. Teresa deliberately left the rear door of their mobile home unlocked for easy access for her co-conspirators, armed with the shotguns that Teresa had financed. The two gunmen entered the home in the wee hours of the morning when Julian and Charles were still in a deep sleep. Matthew woke up Teresa who had fallen asleep next to Julian while waiting for her accomplices. She got up and went to the kitchen where she stood while the shootings occurred. First, Matthew entered the bedroom and shot Julian multiple times. The senior Lewis lay lethally wounded but still alive. And Teresa went inside the bedroom not to help her husband, but to retrieve his wallet

before returning to the kitchen. Charles, sleeping in his bedroom, was also shot several times by Rodney. To ensure that the younger Lewis was truly dead, he shot him again two times. In the kitchen, Teresa divided the $300 from his house. Julian's wallet between Matthew and Rodney. After retrieving some of the shotgun shells, the two left the mobile home. Now with two dead bodies in their midst, Teresa waited for 45 minutes before calling 911, although she made at least two telephone calls to other people prior to calling the authorities, her ex-mother-in-law, Marie Bean, and her best friend Debbie Yeats. At approximately 355 a.m., a 911 operator,

fielded a call from Teresa, reporting that an intruder had entered her home between 3.15 and 3.30 a.m., then shot her husband and stepson. She concocted a story that the intruder entered the bedroom where she was sleeping with Julian and told her to get up. Teresa also falsely claimed that Julian told her to go into the bathroom,

where she hid while the intruder fired four or five times. Around 4.18 a.m., sheriff's deputies arrived at the louis his home and were told by Teresa that her husband's body was on the floor in the master bedroom while her stepson's body was in the other bedroom. When the officers entered the master bedroom, they found Julian badly wounded, but still alive and actually talking. He was slowly moaning and uttered, Baby, baby, baby, baby. Julian told the officers his name, and when asked if he knew who had shot him, he faintly responded, my wife knows who'd done this to me.

Well, trying to assist the victims, one deputy observed Teresa, talking on the telephone and heard her say, I told Charles about leaving that back door unlocked. Shortly thereafter, Julian died, but his final words surely incriminated his evil wife. Autopsy reports determine that Julian and Charles both died as a direct result of multiple shotgun wounds they sustained. Autopsy reports determined that Julian and Charles both died as a direct result of multiple shotgun wounds they sustained.

Julian was struck in the upper left arm, shoulder, abdomen, pelvis, penis, thighs, legs, arms, and chest. The bullets destroyed or removed large areas of tissue in his upper arm, shoulder, and upper chest, and fractured several ribs. In addition, plastic wadding from a shotgun shell was. lodged in Julian's left lung tissue. However, none of Julian's injuries were immediately fatal, and Julian instead died from extensive blood loss, approximately 45 minutes to an hour after the shootings occurred. Officers said that Teresa didn't seem upset when informed that Julian and Charles were dead. Pittsville County Sheriff's Office investigators interviewed Teresa, who claimed that Julian

had physically assaulted her a few days before the murders. She denied killing him, or having him killed, or even knowing who killed him. She told investigators that she and Julian had talked and prayed together before he went to bed that night, and that she told him she was going to the kitchen to pack his lunch for the next day. A lunch bag was found in the refrigerator with an attached note saying, I love you. I hope you have a good day. She had also drawn a picture of a smiley face on the bag and inscribed. I miss you when you're gone.

It may have seemed so sweet indeed, but the cunning woman's greed for money began to surface immediately. She acted swiftly to get a hold of the benefits from Julian's and Charles's insurance policies. After all, it was the prime motivation of the double murder that she plotted. Hours after the two were killed on October 30th,

Teresa called her husband's supervisor at the Dan River textile mill, Mike Campbell and informed him of Julian's murder. She also asked for Julian's paycheck, which she could pick up at 4 p.m. that day. During Teresa's trial much later, Mike testified that she told him that Julian had bought her a red sports car before he was killed, but that she was going to trade it in, along with one of his vehicles for a larger car. She also told Mike that she planned to sell Julian's land and mobile home. Also, on the day of the murders, Teresa spoke with Lieutenant Michael Booker, Charles's commanding

officer, telling him that she was still in shock and that the police had been questioning her. She said, There is no way I would have killed my husband and stepson. They guessed that because I didn't get shot that I might have done it. Teresa then informed Lieutenant Booker that she was the secondary beneficiary of Charles's military life insurance policy, and she'd been told that she would be contacted within 24 hours of his death about when she could get her money. On November 4, 2002, Teresa once again contacted Lieutenant Booker requesting to get Charles's personal effects. But she got angry when the lieutenant

said that they would be given to Charles's sister, Kathy Clifton, his only living immediate next of kin. Teresa again asked about the life insurance money. and reminded Lieutenant Booker that she was the secondary beneficiary. When he told her that she would still be entitled to the life insurance, she responded, That's fine. Kathy can have all of his effects as long as I get the money. During the first day of the father and son's wake, Teresa also told Kathy that she was the sole beneficiary of everything,

and that money was no object. In addition to her attempts to obtain Julian's paycheck, the widow also made a quick attempt to withdraw $50,000 from Julian's prudential securities account by presenting a forged check made payable to her at the bank. But the bank employee refused to cash the check because the signature didn't match Julian's signature in the bank's records.

Investigators learned that Teresa was aware prior to the murders that she would handsomely profit from the deaths of her husband and stepheny. son. Her blatant attempts to obtain the cash payoff from the murders then finally caught up with her. Investigators presented Teresa with accumulating evidence against her on November 7, 2002. Perhaps feeling trapped and concerned, Teresa confessed that she offered Matthew Schallenberger money to kill Julian. However, she falsely claimed that Matthew shot both Julian and Charles and that Matthew had expected to receive half of the insurance proceeds. But Teresa changed her mind and decided to keep all the money.

She then accompanied the investigator to Matthew's house to identify him as her co-conspirator. The following day, Teresa admitted to the investigators that she didn't tell the whole truth. So she confessed about Rodney Fuller's involvement in the murders and disclosed that her minor daughter had also assisted during the planning process. In searching the mobile home of Teresa's co-conspirators, officers recovered two pairs of rubber household gloves containing primer residue caused by the firing of a firearm shell and two shotguns, one of which was used to fire the shotgun shells found in Julian's bedroom. Shortly after that, Teresa Lewis was charged for her participation in the murder for hire and profit plot. During the

murder trial, the judge deemed Teresa Lewis the mastermind of the crime and called her the head of this serpent. Her counsel became extremely concerned about the heinous facts surrounding the crime and their dim prospects for preventing a death penalty verdict by a Pennsylvania county jury. Given their knowledge of the assigned trial judge and of juries generally in the county, They became convinced that Teresa's best chance of avoiding the death penalty would be to submit to sentencing by the trial judge. Accordingly, counsel recommended that Teresa plead guilty and invoke her statutory right to be sentenced by that trial judge. Defense attorneys likewise thought the evidence against Teresa was overwhelming and advised her to plead guilty to the capital charges and hope that the judge would show some leniency since she'd been coercing. operating with investigators. Prior to the guilty plea proceeding, a competency assessment of

Teresa was performed by Barbara Haskins, a court-approved, board-certified forensic psychiatrist. She stated that cognitive testing showed a full-scale IQ of 72, verbal IQ was 70, and performance IQ was 79. She said that Teresa was competent to enter the pleas and able to understand and appreciate the possible penalties. At the guilty plea proceeding, the trial judge questioned Teresa and made sure she understood that she was waiving her right to a jury and that she would be sentenced to either life in prison or death by the trial judge. Satisfied that Teresa entered the plea voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently, the trial judge accepted the plea and scheduled the sentencing proceeding. However, Teresa's plea was for not since under Virginia law.

Multiple murders within a three-year period are subject to the death penalty. She was sentenced to death, while Matthew and Rodney, who actually fatally shot Julian and Charles, were sentenced to life in prison at separate trials. Teresa's daughter, Christy, served five years because she knew about the plan but failed to report it. Teresa was granted an automatic review by the Supreme Court of Virginia, but they rejected the argument that it was unfair to execute her while her co-conspirators got life sentences. The SC also rejected Teresa's challenges to the constitutionality of Virginia's death penalty law. As a result, she was placed on death row at the Fluvana Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia.

David Grimes, the prosecutor, who saw the scene shortly after the crimes occurred, said, I can frankly say that Teresa Lewis is as evil a person as I've ever met. I would wager with some assurance that you wouldn't find anyone who knew her before this event occurred who thought she was mentally retarded or had a limited mentality, that it would ever cross their minds. The death sentence of Teresa Lewis drew varied reactions from the public, not just in the U.S., but in other parts of the world as well. Her supporters filed 7,300 appeals for clemency to then Virginia governor Bob McDonnell,

stating that Teresa Lewis is deeply remorseful and has been a model prisoner, helping fellow female inmates cope with their circumstances. They believe Teresa didn't deserve to die because she was borderline intellectually disabled with the intellect equivalent of a 13-year-old and was manipulated by a smarter conspirator. It was wrong for her to be sentenced to death while the two men who fired the shots received life terms. So it would seem fair let her death sentence be commuted to life in prison as well. Teresa herself issued an appeal to Governor McDonnell. She said,

I just want the governor to know that I am so sorry deeply from my heart. And if I could take it back, I would, in a minute. I just wish I could take it back. and I'm sorry for all the people that I've hurt in the process. But that all fell on deaf ears. On September 17, 2010, Governor McDonald decided to pursue Teresa's upcoming execution, saying, having carefully reviewed the petition for clemency, the judicial opinions in this case, and other relevant materials,

I find no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was imposed by the circuit court and affirmed by all reviewing courts. Teresa Lewis, the mastermind and the murder of her husband and stepson, was to spend the last hours of her 41 years of life on September 23, 2010, at the Greensville Correctional Center. For her last meal before facing death, she requested fried chicken, sweet peas with butter, German chocolate cake, and Dr. Pepper.

At 8.55 p.m., Teresa, dressed in a light blue shirt, dark blue pants and flip-flops, was ushered by guards into the death chamber. Within moments, she was flat on the gurney as guards strapped her down. At 858, officials drew a dark blue curtain across the window. Behind it, they attached the intravenous lines. At 909, the curt opened. Teresa's arms were now extended from her body

with strips of white tape holding the tubes in. When asked if she had any final words, she asked if Kathy Clifton, the only surviving kin of Julian and Charles Lewis, was there. Then Teresa said clearly, I just want Kathy to know that I love you, and I'm very sorry. Then the chemicals began flowing. The first was thial pental sodium, which rendered her unconscious. The second was pancaronium bromide, which stopped her breathing. The final chemical was potassium chloride that stopped her heartbeat.

Teresa's feet and toes twitched, and then they stopped. She was declared dead at 9.13 p.m. and was cremated after her execution. Teresa Lewis's execution started a debate in the U.S. and other parts of the world concerning capital punishment and more specifically. The death sentences applied on women in murder cases. Perhaps that was the compensatory factor in Teresa's tragic fate. This, aside from making a record as the 12th woman to be executed in the United States since capital punishment, was reinstated in 1976, and the first woman to be executed in Virginia since 1912. Record-breaking, yes, but was it deserved?

Well, that's up to you to debate. So that's it for this week's episode. of every town. Tune in next week for another one filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because who knows? Maybe your town will be next.