Prosecutors, relatives disappointed with jury's verdict

Jury recommends 7 life terms, 93 years for double homicide

By Jill Palermo, Times Staff Writer

A Prince William County jury Thursday recommended Ronald Williams Hamilton serve seven life terms plus 93 years in prison for the 2016 shootings that killed his wife, Crystal Hamilton, and rookie Prince William police officer Ashley Guindon while seriously injuring two other police officers who responded to his wife’s 911 call for help.

But the jury also spared Hamilton, 34, of the death penalty on two capital murder charges – an outcome both Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert and the victims’ mothers said was disappointing. A judge will formally sentence Hamilton at a hearing set for March 7.

“We are disappointed,” Ebert said in an interview after Hamilton’s two-and-a-half-month trial ended Oct. 25. “All over the country, people are shooting police officers, and the one way to deter that is to have the death penalty available to keep people from doing such a thing.”

“Under these circumstances, we felt it justified the death penalty,” Ebert added. “Half the people agreed with us and half didn’t.”

Ebert, now in his 50th year as Prince William County’s top prosecutor, was referring to one of two capital murder charges that split the 12-member jury in half.

The group, composed of 10 women and two men, was united in its decision to sentence Hamilton to life in prison without the possibility of parole in connection with the murder of Guindon, 28, one of three police officers Hamilton gunned down with his AK-47 during the early evening hours of Feb. 27, 2016.

On that charge, the jury decided unanimously the prosecution failed to prove the “aggravating factors” necessary to warrant the ultimate punishment: either the vileness of the crime or that Hamilton presents a continuing threat to society.

On the second capital murder charge, which accused Hamilton of killing two people in a three-year period, six of the 12 jurors decided Hamilton deserved the death penalty, while six recommended life in prison.

Judge Steven S. Smith denied a request from Ebert and his fellow prosecutors to issue an “Allen charge,” ordering the jury back into deliberations to see if they might reach a unanimous verdict.

Smith said the move was not appropriate in the case. He declared the jury deadlocked, taking the death penalty off the table.

Mother: ‘I wanted justice for Ashley’

Both Sharon Guindon, Ashley Guindon’s mother, and Cherry Murphy, Crystal Hamilton’s mother, said they were surprised and hurt by the jury’s verdict. In an interview with NBC-4 journalist Julie Carey, Sharon Guindon said, “The jury got it wrong.”

“It’s horrendous. It goes very deep. I wanted justice for Ashley,” Sharon Guindon said. “We wanted to send a message on the death penalty. If you kill a police officer, you are going to get death.”

Murphy said she felt “hurt” by the jury’s decision. She left the courtroom in tears.

“I was seeing all the pictures of my baby laying on the floor. I feel like I lost it all over again,” Murphy said. “He gets to walk free. Well, not free, but he’s alive,” she added of Ronald Hamilton, her former son-in-law. “I’ll never been the same again.”

Sharon Guindon said she suspected some of the jurors were thinking of Hamilton’s 13-year-old son when they decided against execution.

“I think that was for Tyriq,” she said. “If it’s for the sake of that young boy, I can live with that.”

Chief Deputy Commonwealth’sAttorney Rick Conway said he came to the same conclusion: that some of jurors “felt like if they voted for the death penalty, they would truly be making an orphan of his son.”

Conway noted that Hamilton, an active-duty Army staff sergeant at the time of the shootings, was a rare capital-murder defendant.

“It’s very rare that you have a capital murderer who has been in the military as long as Mr. Hamilton has been in the military, had deployed twice to Iraq and had apparently served well in Iraq and was working in the Pentagon at the time,” Conway said. “It’s very rare that you have somebody with that kind of background charged [with capital murder].”

Conway also conceded the decision might reflect a change in public opinion about the death penalty.

Still, he added: “I don’t think you’re going to see a case where somebody murders one of our police officers where we don’t go to a jury, seeking the death penalty.”

“I can tell you as long as I’m in office, that’s not going to happen,” Ebert agreed.

In his 50-year career, Ebert said he has successfully pursued the death penalty “14 or 15 times.” Asked if he would seek re-election in 2019, Ebert said he had not yet made a decision.

The jurors declined to comment on their verdict, according to their foreman.

Attorney: Grateful the jury ‘saw the humanity’ in Hamilton

On Sept. 26, the jury declared Hamilton guilty of 17 felony charges related to the fatal shootings as well as the attempted murders of Prince William police officers Jesse Hempen and David McKeown, who suffered serious wounds in the incident but survived.

Hempen was shot in the leg but has returned to duty as a patrol officer. McKeown was shot in the chest, arm and groin. He has returned to desk duty, but his injurieshave so far not allowed him to work as a patrol officer. Prosecutors told the jury McKeown likely would not be alive if it weren’t for “the miracles of modern medicine.”

In his closing argument Tuesday, Hamilton’s defense attorney Edward Ungvarsky spoke to jurors for two hours, making a sometimes emotional plea that they show mercy and spare his client’s life.

At one point, Ungvarsky asked the jurors to imagine how they would feel if a neighbor asked them to defend a decision to put Hamilton to death. Ungvarsky suggested that at that moment, the juror might find himself or herself questioning the decision.

“There is no going back. You need to get it right now, today,” Ungvarsky said.

After the verdict, Ungvarsky said he appreciates the jury’s hard work and is “grateful they saw the humanity in Ronald Hamilton.”

A career public defender who directed the Northern Virginia Capital Defender Office in Arlington until Feb. 1, Ungvarsky said he understood the “devastating” loss to victims’ families.

“It’s a horrible thing to lose someone who is young and has promise,” he said. “We understand the natural challenge of that.”

Still, he said the verdict is an indication of a waning acceptance of the death penalty. “This verdict is fully consistent with that trend,” he said.

Hamilton’s father: Verdict a ‘tremendous relief’

Ronald Hamilton’s father, Ronald Whaley Hamilton, a retired major with the Charleston, South Carolina, police department, commented on behalf of Ronald Hamilton’s relatives, several of whom attended the sentencing hearing.

“It’s a tremendous relief,” the elder Hamilton said of the verdict. “This has been about a three-year process. We have always been crying for mercy. In this case, we felt the death penalty was not warranted.”

The elder Hamilton testified during the trial about the fraught relationship he had with his son, who was the product, along with a younger daughter, of a long-term extramarital affair.

The elder Hamilton was in touch with the children when they were little but then went for years without being in contact. The elder Hamilton told jurors he re-connected with his son when the younger Hamilton was stationed in Iraq. He said he regretted not having a larger role in his son’s life but was also grateful that “Ronnie” forgave him and welcomed him back into his life when he was a young adult.

After the verdict, the elder Hamilton said his son is “remorseful” about the shooting.

“We are pleased that the jury did not issue a death sentence. We thank God for his mercy. We thank the jury for its verdict,” Ronald Whaley Hamilton said.

“We as a family continue to pray for all the family members of the victims and those who were affected by this incident, and we also pray for the Prince William community.”

Amanda Heincer contributed to this report. Reach Jill Palermo at jpalermo@fauquier.com

Crystal Hamilton

Ashley Guidon

Ronald Williams Hamilton