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Convicted killer Hagy to admit strangling Audrey West in 1985: Fresh from his first-degree murder conviction, he'llMar 25, 2010 (The Roanoke Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- William Ray Hagy Jr., convicted of first-degree murder on Wednesday for strangling a Roanoke prostitute in 1984, will plead guilty or no contest Friday to the 1985 rape-murder of a woman in her Old Southwest home, his lawyer said today. Hagy, 49, in addition will accept a conviction for raping a teenager in 1984, resolving all the charges against him. He'll be sentenced at a hearing on Friday, the Roanoke Circuit Court Clerk's office confirmed this afternoon, and faces life imprisonment. Hagy was convicted in a three-day trial this week of murdering Cynthia Denise McCray, 21, in 1984 and would have stood trial for strangling and raping Audrey Anne West, 33, six months later. West's body was found propped on a Teddy bear pillow in her son's bedroom. Hagy is ready to accept a life sentence at the state's Red Onion supermax prison, where he has been imprisoned for years for raping and sodomizing a 14-year-old girl, said his attorney, Gary Lumsden of Roanoke. "He wants to go home as quickly as possible," Lumsden said, referring to the prison. Hagy was charged in the 1980s murders after Roanoke's cold case detective, L.P. Manning, submitted old evidence for modern DNA testing in 2007 and compared the results with a state prisoner database. To see more of The Roanoke Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.roanoke.com/. Copyright (c) 2010, The Roanoke Times, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |