Double Murderer's Ex-Girlfriend Sentenced

(This story was originally published in The Crewe-Burkeville Journal on July 5, 2007)

By ELLIOTT IRVING
AND RICK GUNTER

NOTTOWAY — The former girlfriend whose testimony led to the conviction of double murderer Michael Todd Hancock earlier this year on Thursday received a life sentence in one of the killings with most of the prison time suspended.

Tracy Lynn Reeves, 34, faced seven felony charges stemming from the shooting death of Leonard Johnson Jr. at his residence on Lone Pine Road near Burkeville in August 2005.

Two days later, according to court testimony, Mr. Hancock shot and killed Crewe resident Donald Ryder.

In late March, Mr. Hancock, in a plea bargain, agreed to life in prison without parole in exchange for pleading guilty to the two homicides. He was never tried for several other crimes he allegedly committed during a summer 2005 crime spree, including a daylight robbery of Crittenden’s Drug Store in downtown Crewe.

Veteran Nottoway Commonwealth’s Attorney Mayo K. Gravatt told Judge Thomas V. Warren during last Thursday morning’s court session that Ms. Reeves provided the testimony that basically convicted Mr. Hancock. In fact, there was no physical evidence in murders linking Mr. Hancock to the crimes.
Mr. Gravatt told Judge Warren that her level of participation in the Ryder slaying was different from that in the Johnson murder. In the latter, Ms. Reeves told her then boyfriend that Mr. Johnson was someone who might have money. Mr. Hancock and Ms. Reeves were living together in Victoria and desperately needed rent money, testimony in the Hancock case indicated in March.

Both Mr. Gravatt and Judge Warren noted Thursday that prior to Ms. Reeves’ involvement with Mr. Hancock and his wave of murderous crime she had no criminal record prior to the 2005 incidents.

Ms. Reeves’ defense attorney, Russell Stone, of Chesterfield, and Mr. Gravatt, worked out the plea agreement.
According to its terms, which Judge Warren went over carefully and judiciously with Ms. Reeves and her counsel, the young defendant was sentenced to life in prison on the murder charge in the Johnson case. All but 12 1/2 years of the sentence was suspended. Ms. Reeves will have to serve a minimum of 85 percent of the sentence, or about 10 1/2 years. She will be about 44 at the end of that prison stretch.

Ms. Reeves also received a life sentence on a robbery charge.

Five other felonies originally facing her were nol prossed by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Ms. Reeves confessed to the crimes shortly after they occurred. She provided Nottoway and Virginia State Police investigations with vivid details of the crimes, how they were committed and other information that they apparently found to be credible.

Her testimony in the Hancock trial, a proceeding that lasted two-and-a-half days in Nottoway Circuit Court, is viewed as the decisive factor in the jury finding the 39-year-old career criminal guilty of both murders. It took the jury in the Hancock trial about three hours to reach its guilty verdicts.

Following the verdicts, Craig Cooley and Chris Collins, attorneys for Mr. Hancock approached prosecutor Gravatt about a plea agreement. An agreement was drafted and approved by the parties before the jury could begin the sentencing portion of the trial.

Testimony revealed that Mr. Hancock and Ms. Reeves were desperate for $400 to pay their rent. The two slaying netted them about $150.

There was no DNA in the trial. Mr. Gravatt, saying that Mr. Hancock is “smart,” destroyed the physical evidence and tossed the murder weapon in a Lunenburg County reservoir. The firearm was in the water so long that no incriminating evidence could be gleaned from it, the court was told by a forensic expert.

Mr. Gravatt had told reporters that he planned to seek the death penalty against Mr. Hancock, who only months before the crime spree had spent 18 years in prison after being convicted of the armed robbery of the clerk at Weston’s Motel years in the late 1980s.

Mr. Gravatt said in late March of this year that Mr. Hancock deserved the death penalty. But after conferring with the murdered men’s families, he said, “We concluded this would give finality to the case, rather than 10 years of appeals” following a death sentence.

A straightforward plea agreement was drafted that, in effect, had Mr. Hancock plead guilty to all charges in return for a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

In the end, Mr. Hancock was found guilty of three capital murder charges and received a life sentence on each. One of the three capital charges stemmed from the fact that he had committed two separate murders within a three-year period.
He also received life sentences for robbery charges in the Johnson and Ryder cases.

He received a three-year sentence and a five-year sentence for use of a firearm in the Åugust 2005 slayings.
Judge Warren told Mr. Hancock that he “would spend every day for the rest of your life in prison with no appeal.”

It is believed Lt. Ronnie Scruggs and Sgt. Robert Jones, of the Nottoway Sheriff’s Office, and Special Agent A.J. Spencer, of the Virginia State Police, interviewed Ms. Reeves at an undisclosed prison sometime after the murders. She gave them very detailed information about the crimes.

She told investigators, and this information surfaced in the Hancock trial, that she had known Mr. Hancock since she was 14. He is about five years older than she.

While he was in prison, she, although married by then, wrote to him and visited him.

Mr. Hancock was released from prison in early 2005 and by that April, Tracy Reeves had left her husband and hooked up with Michael Todd Hancock.

She and Mr. Hancock lived for a while with the latter’s mother in Fredericksburg before moving to Victoria.

It is believed Mr. Hancock stole a firearm from a residence in Lunenburg County. This occurred in late July or early Åugust of 2005.

Mr. Hancock wanted to know if she knew anyone who might have money. She told him about Junior Johnson, told him her mother lived across the road from Mr. Johnson about three years before Mr. Hancock asked about money.

Court testimony in the Hancock case indicated that Ms. Reeves and Mr. Hancock went to the Johnson residence on Lone Pine Road. Mr. Hancock knocked on the door and got no answer.

The couple left and Ms. Reeves, according to her testimony, urged her boyfriend “not to do this.”
They drove around for while in the dark and Mr. Hancock wanted to return to the Johnson residence.
Ms. Reeves let Mr. Hancock out of the vehicle, a blue Mustang.

As she drove away, but not too far away from the Johnson home, Tracy Reeves heard shots pierce the night’s silence. She knew what had just happened.

After a brief hesitation, she returned to the Johnson residence and picked up her boyfriend. He was upset because she had not gotten to the scene quicker.

The couple then fled the crime scene.

The murder and robbery may have netted Mr. Hancock $30 or $40, according to testimony.

A neighbor would discover Mr. Johnson’s body in the early morning hours of Aug. 3, 2005, in his truck.
A day or two later, the couple picked up Donald Ryder at his residence off First Street in Crewe.

They all went to the Dollar General Store in Crewe, where Mr. Ryder purchased some T-shirts.

They also may have made a stop at C-Mart in Crewe, where Mr. Ryder purchased beer.

The plan also was to rob Mr. Ryder, who received a disability check. Ms. Reeves and Mr. Hancock still were short of rent money.

They all drove around for quite a while eventually ending up on a dead-end road in the southwestern part of the county.
It is believed Ms. Reeves knew the place because she had lived there when she was very young.

She said she did not know Mr. Hancock was going to shoot Donald Ryder. But the three of them that August day walked toward a house.

She said she saw Michael pull out a firearm, put it in the back of Mr. Ryder’s head and pull the trigger.
It is believed that Mr. Hancock proceeded to shoot Mr. Ryder two or three more times.

Mr. Hancock pulled the body into the bushes and the firearm later was tossed into the Lunenburg reservoir.
It was not until Nov. 6, 2005, that Mr. Ryder’s skeletal remains were located.

During the Hancock trial, Mr. Gravatt said arguably the most memorable words spoken in either the Hancock or Reeves trials. “Any combination of circumstances can prevent this from being a CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) case, and they did. This is a case about humans and cold-blooded murder.”

Attorneys for Mr. Hancock tried to shift blame to Ms. Reeves. Defense attorney Chris Collins said that only the word of Ms. Reeves tied his client to the crimes.

He told the jury and Judge Warren that his client was taking the fall for Ms. Reeves. He argued that she faced capital murder and two counts each of first-degree murder, robbery and use of a firearm stemming from the slayings.

Referring to fact that Ms. Reeves had packed her things and left her husband, attorney Collins said, “She attached herself to whoever looks like they are going to be the best ticket toward (gaining) leniency in these activities she participated in.”

The jury did not buy the defense attorney’s argument. Jurors believed the young woman’s testimony and convicted Mr. Hancock.

Investigators and the prosecutor also believed her, and this goes far to explain the fact that she received what many people would view as a light sentence for involvement in horrific crimes.