ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) – A man facing the death penalty for a Roanoke murder has been granted clemency.
President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of 37 people on death row Monday. One of them is 23-year-old Aquilia Marcivicci Barnette, a North Carolina man sentenced to death after the 1996 murder of his ex-girlfriend Robin Williams in Roanoke, Virginia.
He initially went to Williams’ apartment in Roanoke where he cut the phone lines, poured gasoline onto the window sill, set fire to the gasoline, and threw a Molotov cocktail into the apartment before driving away.
Barnette then hid out in North Carolina after he was wanted by police.
On June 21, 1996, he killed 22-year-old Donald Lee Allen to hijack his car and drive the vehicle to Roanoke. Barnette drove to Williams’ mother’s house in Roanoke where he chased Robin out of the house and shot her.
After court proceedings, Barnette will serve life without the possibility of parole after confessing to both murders.