A man was given two life sentences after being found guilty for the rape and murder of a Virginia Beach woman, according to court documents.
James King, 71, was given the maximum sentences for the charges of first-degree murder and object sexual penetration. This is King's second murder conviction.
The first murder happened in Ohio back in 1986 and the second murder happened in Virginia Beach in 2020.
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Court records outline how back in 1986, King went to a police station in Ohio and confessed to murdering a woman.
He was convicted and served 20 years in prison.
In 2020, King went to Virginia Beach police and told them he woke up to a woman dead in his hotel room.
According to court transcripts, King went down to the Third Precinct in Virginia Beach back on September 17, 2020, and allegedly told detectives he wanted to turn himself in.
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King said he woke up at the Days Inn hotel on Bonney Road and saw his friend, 53-year-old Lexie Walters, dead on the couch but couldn't explain what happened to her.
King told detectives he and Walters was seeing each other on and off.
Prosecutors said right before the murder, the two went to a bar for several hours.
They said King, who ordered and purchased all the drinks, drank five Budweiser beers and Walters drank four rum and cokes and had 12 shots of Fireball Whiskey.
They said when the bartender realized King was giving all the shots to Walters, she stopped serving them.
They said King offered her a large tip if she would continue serving Walters, and said to the bartender, "She [Walters] is dying anyway."
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King and Walters left the bar and went to the hotel room he had rented at the Days Inn, which is where the murder took place.
Walters was found dead by police after a brutal and violent attack.
“That’s fairly unusual to walk into a police station and say there is a dead woman in my hotel room,” said Sonny Stallings, a crime analyst and longtime attorney in Hampton Roads.
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The WTKR News 3 Investigative Team looked into King’s previous criminal history. We learned that King was also convicted of murdering the mother of the bride after a wedding reception in Ohio back in 1986, according to court documents.
It states he turned himself in to police back then too, this time in Lucas County.
He spent 20 years behind bars and was released in 2007.
In 2018, he was also accused of raping another woman in Virginia Beach but a jury found him guilty of a lesser charge: misdemeanor assault and battery.
In 2020, when detectives asked about his previous criminal history, he allegedly said that he had been in trouble for the same thing, saying that a female was involved and that sometimes he just "flips out."
King is going to be 72 next month, and his defense attorney listed several medical issues he has been facing, requesting that he be placed in a facility that could assist with these problems. However, court documents say that the judge ultimately denied that request.
