Brown awaits trial on third firearm charge
Found guilty last week on two other counts
Chester Brown, who was found guilty of two firearm charges in Rappahannock County Circuit Court last Thursday, is awaiting trial on a third, all in connection with a gun missing from the home of Doris Critzer, 74, who was found murdered in her Washington home last August.
Brown, 63, of Washington, who has not been charged with the homicide, was convicted of grand larceny of a firearm and possession of a firearm while under a protective order. A jury of eight men and four women deliberated 45 minutes before rendering a verdict after a day-long trial.
“I’m pleased that justice was done,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Art Goff, who prosecuted the case. Defense attorney Joseph Pricone had no comment because he said the case is still ongoing.
Brown will remain in the RSW Regional Jail until his sentencing on May 28. In the meantime, the court scheduled a status hearing for April 8 on the third charge of non-violent possession of a firearm by a felon, which was continued in February after a jury could not be selected.
Multiple exhibits were introduced by Goff as evidence including a photo of the missing gun that he said was found on Brown’s phone; a videotaped interrogation from Aug. 29 in the Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office where Brown said he “lifted” the gun from Critzer’s home; and photos of furniture in Brown’s home that matched furniture in the gun photo. The gun has not been recovered.
Goff called five witnesses for the commonwealth: two detectives from Fauquier County who were called to assist with the homicide investigation; investigator Capt. Jim Jones and Lt. Cody Dodson of the Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office and Bruce Critzer, ex-husband of Doris Critzer who testified he originally purchased and modified the missing gun.
The ongoing homicide investigation cropped up several times in witness examination. In his testimony, Jones said multiple items were sent to the state forensic lab for DNA testing, and there are four samples that came back positive for DNA. Detectives are now waiting for a second round of testing that was not originally requested that will compare found DNA against Critzer and Brown’s DNA. No blood was found on the clothing Brown was seen wearing the day he visited Critzer’s home.
Brown, wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt rather than a jail uniform, took the stand and testified that Critzer loaned him the firearm, contradicting what he said in the videotaped interview.
Brown said he did not commit the homicide, and felt pressured by the police questioning and search of his home. He said Critzer loaned him the gun because he had experienced instances of harassment, with individuals he said he didn’t know throwing things at his home and mailbox, and he wanted to scare them off.
He testified that he originally said the gun was stolen, not loaned, because Critzer did not want her family to know she loaned it to him, and that she “didn’t want her family to know a lot of things.”
“All in my mind was that they were talking about homicide… They wanted to hear that I stole the gun, so I went with that,” Brown said on the stand.
In his closing statements, Goff urged jurors to reject Brown’s testimony. He argued that Critzer would not have given the gun freely, and that she was “definitely attached to her guns.”
“Using your common sense… I ask you to completely reject that,” Goff said. “Now he doesn’t want to suffer the consequences, he’s lying to you.”
In his rebuttal to Goff, Pricone stressed the idea of “reasonable doubt” and the state’s high burden of proof, and noted multiple missing pieces and doubts in the case–no DNA evidence or fingerprints belonging to Brown, no blood of Critzer’s found on Brown’s clothes and no data on the photo of the gun was presented in court. In his testimony, Jones said detectives did not dust for fingerprints in Critzer’s home.
“If there’s a single reasonable doubt, the state requires you find [him] not guilty,” Pricone said. “If you’re being accused of a homicide, you desperately want the police to agree with you that you did not commit the homicide.”
In the middle of deliberation, jurors returned to the courtroom with a question– could they have access to the date and time the photo of the missing gun was taken, something that was not disclosed during the trial. Judge William Sharp denied the request, stating that the jury had to rely only on the current evidence.
Brown could face a maximum of 25 years of prison time for the charges–up to 20 years for the grand larceny and five for the possession of a firearm under a protective order charge.
Brown said he did not kill Doris Critzer, and felt pressured by the police questioning and search of his home.