VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- A Virginia Beach man charged with murdering a woman in his hotel is an ex-convict who served 20 years for killing woman under similar circumstances in the 1980s.
At a preliminary hearing Friday, a judge found probable cause to send a murder charge against 67-year-old James Richard King to a grand jury. Police say that last year King killed 53-year-old Lexie Walters, a woman he'd been seeing on and off, at a Days Inn in the city where King had been staying.
The Virginian-Pilot reportsthat court records show King served 20 years in Ohio after being convicted of murdering the mother of a bride he met at a wedding in Lucas County in 1986.
A detective testified that King turned himself in after the Virginia Beach slaying at the police station. But he first went out for cigarettes and coffee because he knew it would be his last day of freedom.
He's being held without bond.
