On Aug. 6, 2001, a grand jury indicted Larry Bill Elliott, a former army intelligence officer, with one count of first degree murder in the death of Robert A. Finch, 30, and capital murder in the death of Finch’s live-in girlfriend, Dana Thrall, 25.[i] 

Finch was in a custody dispute with a woman Elliott met on the Internet and became his love interest during an 18-month relationship.    

A newspaper delivery woman told police that she saw a man next to a pickup truck at the crime scene that fit the description of Elliott.  An officer arrived at the site and noted the pickup had a Department of Defense decal but failed to write down the tag number.   

Police investigators visited Rebecca Gragg, the mother of Finch’s children and eyed a vehicle with Maryland tags registered to Elliott. Detectives learned that Elliott also owned a pickup truck that matched the description of the vehicle at the murder scene. After a series of inconsistent statements by Gragg and Elliott, police arrested Elliott. Accompanied by her attorney, Gragg admitted to investigators that she had received a series of phone calls from Elliott on the morning of the murders.[ii]

On July 25, 2002, after deliberating for 4 ½ hours, a jury found Elliott guilty of first-degree murder and capital murder in the deaths of the Prince William couple. On July 31, the jury recommended life in prison in the murder of Finch and the death penalty in the murder of Thrall.[iii]  A few weeks later, Circuit Court Judge William D. Hamblen threw out the verdict and ordered a retrial because a juror had discussed the case with her husband, an attorney, on the day the panel decided on the punishment.  Elliott was retried and on April, 2, 2003, he was once again convicted by a new jury of all counts. 

On April 4, 2003, the jury recommended that Mr. Elliott’s punishment be fixed to life in prison for the murder of Finch and a death sentence for killing Thrall.  The trial judge affirmed the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Mr. Elliott to die on May 22, 2003.  The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear defense appeals on Jan. 10, 2005.[iv]