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August 8, 2018
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Jury delivers guilty verdict, life sentence in CVS murder By Leland Schwartz
On Fauquier.com — The murder of Rex Olsen: one night from several views
Times Staff Writer
A jury recommended life in prison last week for Bernard Duse Jr., the former CVS employee they found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2017 shooting death of his former boss, Rex Mack Olsen. The life sentence exceeds the state’s minimum 20-year sentence on the murder charge. The jury also recommended a three-year sentence on a weapons charge related to the murder. Both verdicts were unanimous. The jury of seven men and five women delivered the recommendation after hearing testimony from both Olsen’s and Duse’s families. Olsen, of Culpeper, was 64 when he was killed on July 26, 2017. Duse is 77. Before recommending a sentence to the judge, the jury listened intently to family members who spoke about the losses they suffered as a result of Olsen’s death. Olsen’s 37-year-old son, Hans, whose birthday is on the day his father was killed, said the family always got together on holidays, which would never again “feel right.” “It’s been rough,” he told the jury. “I don’t even know how to describe it.” Olsen’s other son, 30-year-old Colin, said his fa-
TIMES STAFF PHOTO/LELAND SCHWARTZ Bernard Duse was found guilty of first-degree murder for the July 2017 shooting death of Warrenton CVS store manager Rex Olsen. ther was a “loving man” who was “probably the best person I know.” “I don’t have a dad anymore,” he told the jury. Olsen’s wife, Julia, said the family had a “very happy, contented life. We were very, very blessed.” “Now I have to figure out how I am going to exist for the next 30 to 40 years without my partner,” she said.
“I know things will be OK,” she told the jury. “But things should not be this way.” Duse’s niece, Fonda, told the jury her uncle was her surrogate father, as her dad was murdered in 1970. “He’s everything to me,” she said, describing Duse as “compassionate.” She said Duse thought her “how to brighten someone’s day” and how “to leave people in a better condition than when you met them.” Fauquier County Commonwealth’s Attorney Fisher told the jury to take into account, while deciding on a recommended sentence, that the “act of murder was premeditated, lying in wait.” “On that factor alone,” Fisher said, “I would argue that you consider the most stringent punishment.” “It was a robbery,” Fisher said. Olsen was “robbed of the best years of his life; the family robbed of the joy of having a father.” During the five-day trial, which began July 30, Duse claimed he did not kill Olsen and was not in Warrenton when Olsen was shot dead near the dumpster behind the CVS pharmacy on Blackwell Road.
See VERDICT, page 2
10-year-old girl killed by fallen tree remembered as ‘beautiful, kind’ Staff reports
PHOTO BY DOUG STROUD A 10-year-old Warrenton girl was killed Wednesday night when a tree fell onto her bedroom. INSIDE Business.............................................15 Classified............................................35 Communities......................................30 Faith...................................................34
Family Time........................................19 Libraries.............................................28 Lifestyle..............................................23 Opinion.................................................7
Lydia Ghergis, the 10-year-old girl killed Wednesday, Aug. 1, when a tree crashed into her Warrenton home, is being remembered as a “beautiful and kind girl who was the embodiment of the phrase, ‘full of life,’” according to a GoFundMe page set up for her family. “It is with a heavy and broken heart that we are starting this Go Fund Me page for Beth and Casey,” the page organizer wrote, referring to Lydia’s parents, Beth and Lydia Ghergis Casey James. “Her smile and laugh were contagious and she always had a twinkle in her eyes.” The page had raised more than $53,000 from more than 800 donors by the weekend. Lydia played softball and was a student at Gravely Elementary School in Gainesville. Her mother, Beth James, was a bus driver for Prince William County schools.
See GIRL, page 2
Obituaries.............................................8 Puzzles...............................................14 Real Estate..........................................29 Sports...................................................9
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Fauquier Times | www.fauquier.com | August 8, 2018
Jury delivers guilty verdict, life sentence in CVS murder VERDICT from page 1 Prosecutors said the evidence shows Duse, the store’s operations manager, shot Olsen and said the murder was “the culmination of a year and a half of bitter litigation.” Duse was undergoing arbitration with CVS after he claimed he was denied a promotion because of his age. The jurors listened to 90 minutes of closing arguments Friday, Aug. 3. Fauquier County Circuit Court Judge Herman A. Whisenant Jr. told the jurors that to find Duse guilty they had to believe beyond a reasonable doubt he killed Olsen in a malicious act that was willful and pre-meditated.
Fisher, who prosecuted the case, told the jury Duse committed “a planned assassination” and “invented” the two “sensational people” Duse blamed for the shooting. “He is the one with the greatest incentive to come up with a fanciful story,” Fisher told the jury, referring to Duse’s testimony two men he at an Alexandria-area library — one named “Luther” and the other “Scatter” — who borrowed his car the night Olsen was killed. Duse said the men were angered after hearing Duse recount how he was unjustly passed over for the supervisor’s job at a CVS in Manassas and sent back to work at the Warrenton
store. In his cross-examination, Fisher questioned the notion that two men Duse barely knew would kill Olsen. Fisher also asked why Duse didn’t tell police he thought the men who borrowed his car “were the true killers.” “I still don’t know who the true killers are,” Duse said. Duse’s defense attorney, John F. Carroll, told the jury that to convict his client, the prosecution had to prove “he pulled the trigger,” something Carroll said, is “just not there.” The gun used in the shooting was never found. Carroll said the prosecution conducted “a rush to judgment” and nev-
er pursued a “goldmine of evidence” after deciding that “they knew they had their man.” For instance, Carroll said, investigators never checked Duse’s car for DNA other than his despite Duse saying he had loaned the vehicle to the two men the day of the murder. Carroll said Duse’s DNA, found by prosecutors in one of Olsen’s pockets, could have been transferred from things they shared at work, such as keys, the bank-deposit bag or the cash register. Most of all, Carroll argued, one witness said on four occasions that after hearing gunfire he saw “a white guy” standing over Olsen behind the CVS from his vantage point outside the Ruby Tuesday’s restaurant. Duse is African American. A formal sentencing hearing for “It was a very large tree that came Duse has been scheduled for Oct. 17. Reach Leland Schwartz at down on the corner of the house,” Mylschwartz@fauquier.com ers said. An initial report indicated there were two children in the house, but it was determined that only one child and her parents were present, Myers said. “The tree was stabilized using hydraulic struts than can hold thousands of pounds,” Myers explained. “It stopped the crushing and stabilized the tree so that we could figure out how compromised the house was. It was fairly stable,” Myers said. The response units were on the Now in the Lifestyle scene from 10:31 p.m. until the final section — Page 25 one left at 2:13 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 2.
10-year-old girl killed by fallen tree remembered as ‘beautiful, kind’ GIRL from page 1 It’s not known exactly why the large tree fell onto the James’ home and into Lydia’s bedroom, pinning her onto her bed. The tree might have been struck by lightning, or it might have given way because the ground was so saturated with rain. “Trees have been coming down” due to ground saturation from frequent and heavy rainfall, said Sam Myers, an assistant chief of the Warrenton Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department. He noted that a woman was killed in Burke last week by a falling tree. The split-foyer home, in the 6200
block of Highmeadow Place in the Cedar Run subdivision, was purchased by Bethany and Casey James in June, according to Fauquier County tax records. The 911 call was made by a neighbor at about 10:25 p.m. Warrenton fire and rescue officials were on the scene in about six minutes. The girl was pronounced dead at the scene, according to reports from the sheriff’s office and fire department. The responding units had cutting and prying equipment. A squad from the Gainesville fire and rescue station in Prince William County arrived with additional equipment, Myers said.
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Community Editor Anita Sherman, 540.351.1635 asherman@fauquier.com ISSN 1050-7655, USPS 188280 Associate Editor John Toler, 540-351-0487 Published every Wednesday by jtoler@fauquier.com Piedmont Media LLC Staff Writers How to reach us Karen Chaffraix ADDRESS: kchaffraix@fauquier.com 41 Culpeper Street Warrenton, Virginia 20186 James Ivancic, 540-878-2414 PHONE: 540-347-4222 jivancic@fauquier.com FAX: 540-349-8676 HOURS: 8 a.m. 5 p.m. weekdays, Jonathan Hunley, jhunley@fauquier.com 24-hour answering service Leland Schwartz, 540-351-0488 Publisher lschwartz@fauquier.com Catherine M. Nelson, 540-347-4222 Sports Editor cnelson@fauquier.com Peter Brewington, 540-351-1169 pbrewington@fauquier.com NEWSROOM Editor in Chief Sports Staff Writer Christopher Six, 540-212-6331 Jeff Malmgren, 540-874-2250 csix@fauquier.com jmalmgren@fauquier.com Managing Editor ADVERTISING Jill Palermo, 540-351-0431 Ad Manager jpalermo@fauquier.com Kathy Mills Godfrey 540-351-1162 Web/Copy Editor kgodfrey@fauquier.com Amanda Heincer, 540-878-2418 aheincer@fauquier.com
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Fauquier Times | www.fauquier.com | August 8, 2018
‘They’re basically water scorched’ By Vicky Moon and Leonard Shapiro Contributing Writers
The torrential rains soaking Northern Virginia over the last few weeks are wreaking some havoc with farmers, orchardists and winemakers in and around Fauquier County. Still, some say it hasn’t been a total washout, though a heavy splash of sustained sunshine would be much appreciated. “Right now, it’s terrible, and if your young crops were planted after a lot of rain in May, it’s been a disaster,” said Jimmy Messick, a longtime Fauquier farmer who also operates Messick’s Farm Market in Bealeton. “I guess it’s OK if your crops had already been maturing. But overall, there’s just been too much rain. Your seeds will drown. Before all this, I had the best stand of pumpkins I’ve had in a long time, but now they’re turning yellow because of the water. They’re basically water-scorched.” Messick said he’s planted vegetables throughout the growing season. “We’ve been trying to do progressive planting all the way through the first frost, so we’ll still be all right.” According to the National Weather Service, 11.21 inches of rain fell in the Northern Virginia area in July, shredding the previous record, posted just last year, of 8.08 inches. The rain has continued into the first week of August, making it difficult to get into the fields to weed, operate tractors and harvest maturing crops. “Growers are very frustrated by all this rain,” said Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension Agent Timothy Ohlwiler, based in Warrenton. “Fruit will split with too much water,” said Ohlwiler, who specializes in horticulture. “There are many fungal infections that come in because of all this water. And the growers cannot get in
and work their fields to manage weeds, or spray because it just keeps raining and it’s so wet.” “It’s definitely making a mess out there,” said Jose Medina at Santa Cruz Produce in Montross. “A lot of the stuff that’s ready to pick right now is just bad. The good news is, we do have some new stuff that’s still coming up so it’s not a total loss, but it’s definitely not good.” “Tomatoes and peppers are the biggest problem. There’s just too much water,” he added. “It puts spots on them. They get soft in the wrong places. Right now, we could use a lot of sun. That would be a big help.”
The wet summer of ‘two thousand hate-teen’
At Pearmund Cellars in Broad Run, vineyard owner Chris Pearmund has been making wine for 30 years and vividly remembers some of the worse ones. He refers to 1996 as “nineteen ninety-sucks” and to 2018 as “two thousand hate-teen.” But he’s seen it all before and believes his operation can literally weather the storm. “Grapes like to have dry feet,” he said. “They like loose, dry soils, higher elevations. This spring and summer, we’ve had three feet of rain out here in seven weeks. That’s the annual rainfall for a year, and it still hasn’t stopped. Just this week we’ve had 5 1/2 inches. You cannot grow grapes with that much water.” Pearmund said production is sure to be lower this year, as it has been in previous years of challenging weather. “It was also difficult in 2011, but I was prepared for it,” he said. “I made less than half the wine I normally would have made. This year I’ll make less wine again, but it will be quality. Right now, our inventory is strong, so we’ll just make less. The only silver lining would be for a very young vineyard. The vines can thrive, but it’s definitely not
Local farmers, vintners lament record-breaking rain
going to be a good year for production for anyone.” At Slater Run Vineyards in Upperville, Chris Patusky said there has been some fruit damage, “but not significant” on their 12 acres of vines. He and his wife, Kiernan Slater, who own and operate the vineyard, are mostly concerned about fungus and mildew, which are exacerbated by the rain. “They need sun, because it’s a good sanitizer,” he said. “I still think if we can get some sun the rest of the month, we’ll be all right.”
‘A beautiful crop of peaches’ at Williams Orchard
At Williams Orchard in Flint Hill, owner Eddie Williams said the rain has “been a challenge to get everything done on time.” “But we’ve got a beautiful crop of peaches right now and people need to come up here and grab them,” he said. “I’ve got three good men working here, and they’ve done a great job in keeping these peaches healthy.” “Rain can get you some rot, but it hasn’t happened here,” he added. “We’ve kept them sprayed, the trees have been pruned and the fruit looks really good. Our apples will be just fine. They’re sizing up pretty good right now.” Williams Orchard has 35 acres in apples and 5 in peaches. Williams said he’s been working in his family’s orchard for 50 years, since the age of 12. “This is my livelihood, not my hobby,” he said. “It’s what I depend on to take care of my family and the people who work for me. And I tell you what, this is 10 times better than having a drought. Sure people will complain about the rain, but life is not perfect.” “You just tell people to come on out here,” he added. “We’re proud of what we’ve got.” Reach Len Shapiro and Vicky Moon at news@ fauquier.com