RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- The inmate accused of killing one of Virginia's
most notorious child molesters when they were forced to share a cell
said he warned a corrections official not to put them together, The
Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Friday.
Dewey Keith Venable, 24, told the newspaper in a letter this week that
the officer he warned responded by telling him he would be put into
isolation unless he agreed to share a cell with Richard Alvin Ausley at
Sussex I State Prison in Waverly.
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13Newsfile
Richard Ausley was killed while in prison.
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Venable, indicted in May for capital murder in the Jan. 13 strangulation
and beating of the 64-year-old Ausley, was the victim of a molester when
he was a child.
The slaying came before Ausley was about to make parole, a development
that prompted state legislators to pass a law allowing dangerous sexual
predators to be locked up indefinitely in treatment centers once they
complete their prison sentence.
Venable also claimed in the letter that he has attempted to take his own
life and has been on suicide watch several times since the slaying.
Prison officials declined to comment on why the men were put together in
a two-man cell, what they knew about Venable's history or other details
of their investigation.
Venable is serving an 18-year, nine-month sentence for felony
convictions that include carjacking, abduction, robbery and illegal use
of a firearm in Virginia Beach.
Norfolk Circuit Court records list Venable among the victims of Dennis
L. Sewell, who pleaded guilty on May 31, 1988, to two counts of
aggravated sexual battery.
Ausley abducted a 13-year-old boy, buried him in a box and sexually
assaulted him repeatedly in 1973. The case received national news
coverage and the victim, Paul Martin Andrews, led the fight for the
state's new Sexually Violent Predators Act.
Venable is to be arraigned on the murder charge Aug. 18 in Sussex
Circuit Court.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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