Long Found Guilty Again

By Hannah Wever
Published: March 6, 2008

After five days of testimony, evidence and arguments, it took jurors only hours to decide James Henry Long, Jr. was guilty of the March 2005 murders of William Browning and Vicki Truax.

The jury recommended two sentences of life imprisonment for Long, one for each murder.

Long was also found guilty of two counts of using a firearm in the commission of a crime and received an additional eight-year sentence for those charges.

Long has already been tried-and was convicted of the first degree murders of Burr Hill residents William Browning and Vicki Truax, but the case was never permitted to progress to the sentencing phase. Before that could happen, Judge Daniel Bouton reversed the jury’s guilty verdict and ordered a new trial for Long. Bouton overturned the conviction after finding that certain exculpatory evidence--a plea agreement between the prosecution and one of its principal witnesses, Robin Browning--was not provided to the defense.

Special prosecutor co-counselors Jim Camblos and Thomas Weidner spent several days producing testimony and evidence. And when the commonwealth rested its case, defense attorney Michael Morchower followed with more witnesses and additional evidence. But after a week and a half of proceedings, it took only three hours for the jury to find Long guilty of murder, and less than half an hour to convict him on the weapons charges.

A compelling closing argument delivered by Morchower pointed the finger at Robin Browning and away from his client, but the speech was not persuasive enough to secure a not-guilty verdict.

Apparently, the commonwealth’s team of prosecutors successfully convinced the jury there was no reasonable doubt of Long’s guilt. Weidner’s closing argument included an account of sordid aspects of Long’s motive: sex, drugs and money. The lawyer described an intricate love triangle between Long, Robin Browning, witness for the prosecution Michelle Faggetter and one of the victims.

“Sex is the oldest motive known to man. That’s the motive that killed William Browning,” Widener said. Long shot William Browning, Weidner said, because Faggetter was considering ending a tryst with Long, and resuming an affair with Browning.

“When Michelle Faggetter told Jamie she was thinking of going back to William, she signed William’s death warrant; she signed Vicki’s death warrant,” Camblos told the jury in his rebuttal. “James Long took it upon himself to kill the man that stood between him and the woman he wanted.”

Weidner told jurors that Long was angry with William Browning over a furniture purchase between the two men. And, Weidner said, on a taped interview at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office shortly after the shootings, Long “admitted he had threatened to kill William Browning about drugs and money.” And during the same interview, Long said he had suspicions that the other victim, Vicki Truax, was “snitching to the police.”

Weidner urged jurors not to believe the defense’s allegation that it was Robin Browning, not Long, who committed the murders.

“You can’t use your imagination as to why Robin Browning would have killed those people. It has to come from the people and from the information,” the prosecutor said.

Information linked to Long, he continued, included tire tracks found at the crime scene, garbage strewn about the road from William Browning’s truck back to Long’s residence. The information, Weidner went on, was a red sports car driven by a white male with facial hair. And as police followed the trail of trash back to Long’s house, they found a red Corvette with no frost on it, and with trash lodged in the undercarriage.

“There’s evidence at the scene,” Weidner said. Shotgun pellets, shells and shot wads removed from the scene of the shootings, were “consistent with what came out of the defendant’s home.”

A 12-gauge shotgun and .32 caliber revolver were linked by forensic evidence to the murders, Weidner said, and belonged to Long, “and no other.” He added that there was no conceivable theory that Robin Browning committed the shootings.

The shotgun was recovered from Long’s residence shortly after the shootings; the .32 was found stashed beneath the house trailer by law enforcement acting on information from Robin Browning.

“Jamie Long murdered-in cold blood, in a horrible fashion-two people that were defenseless. I ask you to come back with a guilty verdict because there is no conceivable theory of innocence for Jamie Long.”

When it was Morchower’s turn to make his closing argument, he asserted that the Commonwealth’s evidence was insufficient, the witnesses not credible, and law enforcement officers unethical.

“The Commonwealth has the burden of proving this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Morchower told jurors. “They have proven one aspect of this case-that the shooting was horrific.” Prosecutors had not, according to Morchower, proven that his client was the shooter. “Where is the evidence? It’s all about the evidence.”

Morchower said it was Robin Browning who killed William Browning and Vicki Truax, and said her testimony consisted of a string of lies.

“What’s her interest in the outcome of this case?” Morchower asked rhetorically. “She wants to do everything she can to keep the commonwealth happy-you can be sure about that. Lying is part of her soul. She’s lied under oath in the past. She’s lied in this case. If you can’t trust the messenger, you can’t trust the message.”

Officers who performed searches on Long’s property had acted improperly, Morchower declared. Investigators, who attempted to “bluff” Long into a confession were unscrupulous, and by releasing a mugshot to the press which influenced witnesses prejudicially.

Long will be appear before Circuit Court Judge Daniel Bouton March 7 to set a date for a formal sentencing hearing.