On the night of August 16, 1991, in Manassas, Virginia, 30-year-old Timothy Rigney was working as the manager of a Little Caesars pizza shop. His life was cut short in a violent robbery that would lead to a capital murder case and the eventual execution of one of his killers.
Two masked and armed men entered the establishment at approximately 10:30 p.m. and demanded money. One of the men, who was shorter, jumped over the counter where Rigney was stationed and took cash from one of the registers. The second, taller assailant remained on the other side of the counter. Both men pointed their semiautomatic weapons at Rigney and demanded that he open the second cash register. When Rigney struggled to open the drawer, the taller of the two men shot him in the chest. The single gunshot proved to be fatal. The two robbers then fled the scene on foot with only $100 in cash.
Months after the murder, investigators identified the two men responsible. The gunman was identified as 28-year-old Carl Hamilton Chichester, a resident of Washington, D.C., who had been staying at a Red Roof Inn in Manassas at the time of the crime. His accomplice was Sheldon Maurice McDowell.
In 1992, Carl Hamilton Chichester was charged with capital murder. The following year, a Prince William County jury convicted him and sentenced him to death. Despite appeals and a clemency petition in which Chichester maintained that McDowell was the one who fired the fatal shot, the conviction was upheld. Two of the four witnesses at the trial testified that Chichester was the shooter. On April 13, 1999, Carl Hamilton Chichester was executed by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center. Sheldon Maurice McDowell was also convicted of murder for his role in the crime and was sentenced to 71 years in prison.
