![]() Burroughs dropped the charges against Martin. Martin had been charged with murder along with Earman in the couple's deaths, but midway in Earman's 1977 trial, Arlington prosecutor William S. Martin, 28, a former Northern Virginia life insurance salesman. His testimony yesterday came as a result of a plea bargain agreement on those charges.ĭuring three hours of testimony, Earman said a key man behind the murders was Joseph N. He has pleaded guilty to a related charge of conspiring to murder the couple and other charges and is to be sentenced June 27. His credibility as a witness is expected to be a key issue in the case, which will resume this afternoon.Įarman cannot be retried on the murder charges despite his testimony yesterday because of the Constitutional protection against double jeopardy. Under cross-examination, Earman conceded that he had lied frequently to police and others about the case. If he killed the couple he could have all of the $15,000 he was offered as the total price of setting up the murders. It was, Earman said, something of a business decision. Throughout his afternoon of testimony in Arlington General District Court, the tanned, blond Earman, a former tennis instructor, was confident, and coldly detached about his decision to murder the couple. He then returned a second time to make it appear the murders had occurred during a robbery, an action he said was designed to confuse police. The first time he returned, Earman said he emptied his pistol's chambers directly into the couple's heads, fearful that his first shots had not killed them. 32 caliber revolver point blank into the couple's heads. In a calm, matter-of-fact voice, Earman, 36, retraced the May 1977 shootings and described his return to the garage where he had fired a. "It didn't bother me," Earman, a former real estate salesman, testified at a preliminary hearing for a man charged with conspiring to kill the couple for $56,000 in life insurance proceeds.Įarman's detailed account of the murders of Alan Foreman and Donna Shoemaker was the first time he has publicly described the crime, called one of the most brutal in Northern Virginia. Richard Lee Earman, acquitted two years ago of the execution-style murders of a young Arlington couple, told a Virginia judge yesterday that he calmly shot the couple to death for the promise of $15,000.
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