In the early morning hours of March 25, 1978, before the familiar hustle and bustle of a new day began, a grim scene was unfolding inside the Shoney's restaurant in Henrico County, Virginia. Agnes Hicks, a 43-year-old female waitress, was at her place of work, unaware of the violence that would tragically cut her life short. She, along with two of her co-workers, Steven Staples, the 20-year-old morning manager, and Franklin Cooley, the 40-year-old janitor, became the victims of a brutal robbery
that ended in a triple homicide.
The perpetrator was one of their own, a 25-year-old short-order cook named Charles Sylvester Stamper. Motivated by greed, Stamper confronted his three colleagues at gunpoint, forcing them into the restaurant's walk-in cooler. Inside the cold confines of the cooler, he fatally shot them with a. 22 caliber pistol before making off with $4,000 from the restaurant's safe. The discovery of the horrific crime was made around 6:35 a.m. by another employee arriving for the breakfast shift. He found the front door's glass shattered and, upon entering, discovered the bodies of Agnes Hicks and Steven Staples. Both had been shot and killed. Franklin Cooley was also found with gunshot wounds and was rushed to a hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries several hours later without ever regaining consciousness.
The investigation into the triple murder led police to Charles Sylvester Stamper. Ballistic tests matched the bullets from the scene to a revolver found at his parents' home, and other forensic evidence linked him to the crime. It was also discovered that he had made several large payments with the stolen money shortly after the murders. Stamper was arrested and charged with the killings.
On November 17, 1978, a jury found Charles Sylvester Stamper guilty of three counts of capital murder committed during an armed robbery. The evidence, though circumstantial, was compelling enough to secure the conviction. For his crimes, the court sentenced him to death for each of the three murders. Following his conviction, Stamper's case went through numerous appeals. In a strange twist, while on death row, he was beaten by a fellow inmate, an attack that left him paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. Despite a campaign for clemency due to his physical disability, his death sentence was ultimately carried out. Charles Sylvester Stamper was executed by electrocution on January 19, 1993.
