(Tribune News Service) — When a 20-year-old Hampton, Va., woman refused to get an abortion in July, police say her U.S. Naval officer boyfriend killed her and dumped her body on a quiet residential roadway north of Richmond.
Emmanuel Dewayne Coble is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Raquiah Paulette King. But Hanover County prosecutors say they’re also planning to charge him in the slaying of his girlfriend’s unborn 12-week-old baby.
Chief Deputy Hanover Commonwealth’s Attorney Shari Skipper told the Daily Press that “we plan to indict a charge in regard to the death of the fetus” after a December probable cause hearing on the murder charge.
Under state law, anyone who “deliberately, maliciously and with premeditation” kills another person’s fetus is guilty of a Class 2 felony — akin to first-degree murder and punishable by up to life in prison. If there’s no premeditation, it’s punishable by up to 40 years, akin to second-degree murder.
Skipper said she will decide after the probable cause hearing which of those sections to charge under.
A rare charge
Thirty-eight states have fetal homicide laws on the books, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Virginia lawmakers adopted the “killing a fetus” statute in 2004.
But the charge is a rare one in Virginia, according to local prosecutors. That’s even as a 2017 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found pregnant women account for 15% of female homicide victims between the ages of 15 and 44.
The state judiciary was unable to provide data this week detailing the number of times the charge has been filed statewide since the law’s inception.
But Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi said Norfolk prosecutors haven’t charged anyone under the statute since it hit the books 18 years ago.
Likewise, Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney Anton Bell said he “has never been presented with facts” to bring the charge since he became the city’s top prosecutor in 2012. Williamsburg-James City Commonwealth’s Attorney Nate Green said his office hasn’t had a pregnant woman slain since he began with the office in 2001.
The push for such laws began in the 1990s and was often wrapped up in the ongoing debate on when life begins.
“These were part of the so-called fetal personhood movement,” Fatehi said. “The idea was to demonstrate that life begins at conception and therefore to afford protections to a fetus in the same way that you would a real live baby.”
But the Virginia law references the “killing the fetus of another.”
“It dodges the question of whether the fetus is a person,” Fatehi said.
Even at the time of the change in law, Virginia had other laws on the books designed to protect pregnant women and their offspring.
There’s the “producing an abortion or miscarriage” charge — a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison — if someone administers drugs or uses other means on a woman “to destroy her unborn child.”
A 22-year-old Hampton man was charged under that law in 2007 after he slipped drugs into a glass of his girlfriend’s drinks and caused her to miscarry. He pleaded guilty to malicious wounding and adulteration charges and was sentenced to five years behind bars.
Moreover, Virginia has a separate “aggravated murder” statute — carrying a mandatory life term — for the premeditated killing of a pregnant woman with the intent “to cause the involuntary termination” of her pregnancy. (That was a capital murder charge before the state’s abolition of the death penalty two years ago.)
But though politics likely played a role in the 2004 law being adopted, Fatehi said he doesn’t think prosecutors have shied away from bringing the charge for political reasons.
“When we have somebody who commits a bad act, it doesn’t matter what our political philosophy is,” Fatehi said.
“If that is the cleanest, best charge to bring, I have a very hard time thinking of any prosecutor who wouldn’t bring it,” he said. “When you’re talking about serious, aggravated violence like that, I don’t think any prosecutor is going to be worried about the fetal personhood implications.”
Green, the president of the Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys, said the fetal killing statute hasn’t been actively discussed within the organization in recent years. He said he’s heard a lot more discussion about whether civil wrongful death laws should apply to the unborn.
A woman’s slaying
The investigation into King’s death began July 21, when her nude body was found by a passerby in the brush in a wooded residential area on Winns Church Road in Hanover. She wasn’t immediately identified, but an autopsy showed the woman was 12 weeks pregnant and shot once in the back.
“There were no large areas of blood, no clothing, no signs of struggle and no cartridge casings in the area,” said the search warrant affidavit filed by the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.
It wasn’t until a week later, July 28, that King’s mother, Rachel Pender, called Hampton Police to report her missing. Shortly thereafter, investigators were able to use King’s tattoos and photo confirmations to link the cases.
Pender told investigators that on July 20, King sent her a sonogram image showing her “pregnant with a 12-week-old baby,” according to search warrant affidavits filed in Hampton Circuit Court. The mother also told deputies that her daughter was having problems with her boyfriend, “who did not want to be a father to Raquiah King’s baby.”
The affidavit said King also told Pender that if “something was to happen to her, that Emmanuel Coble was responsible.” She texted her mother Coble’s name, date of birth, addresses and phone numbers.
King’s father, Gregory King, told a news station in South Florida that his daughter — a hairstylist and tattoo artist — attended high school near Miami and moved to Virginia after Coble was stationed here.
Coble, 27, a Navy lieutenant junior grade from Ohio, was stationed aboard the USS John C. Stennis, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier now undergoing a major mid-life refueling and overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding.
The Navy said Coble began in the enlisted ranks in 2013 and was commissioned as an officer in 2019. He held jobs in information warfare and served in Italy, San Diego and Hampton Roads. He also was a pistol marksman.
When police interviewed Coble by phone on July 28, he told them that King rented an apartment from him on North King Street in Hampton but moved out a couple of weeks earlier.
The affidavit said Coble initially failed to mention that he and King were in a relationship, that she was carrying his child, and that he paid for a July 20 visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic. Coble didn’t express any concerns for King’s safety, the affidavit added.
Cellphone data key to case
Court documents filed in Hampton Circuit Court say investigators used cellphone tracking data to connect Coble to the site in Hanover where King was found dead, and also found blood in the trunk of the Navy lieutenant’s car.
After obtaining warrants for King’s cellphone data, deputies learned King sent her last text message to Coble at 11:40 p.m. on July 20 — about six hours after the couple left the Virginia Beach clinic. Her phone went out of service about nine minutes later.
Police interviewed Coble a second time on Aug. 5. He admitted to driving King to the Virginia Beach Planned Parenthood on July 20, with the plan to get an abortion that day. But though Coble paid for the office visit, he said he learned later she opted not to proceed with it.
While Coble acknowledged he was “frustrated” by King’s change of heart, he told investigators he drove her back to Hampton. He said he then went back to his apartment in Newport News, where he contended he had slept until daylight on July 21.
But that story contradicted a police surveillance system that tracked Coble’s Chevrolet Cruze sedan driving in Newport News at 4:44 a.m., before sunrise, the affidavit said.
Investigators impounded Coble’s car, spraying a chemical into the trunk to detect blood. It “reacted on contact,” the affidavit said, indicating the presence of blood.
The affidavit said investigators also found a hairband in the trunk with a human hair attached — with the hairband matching one found on King’s wrist at the crime scene.
Investigators then got Coble’s cellphone tracking data from T-Mobile.
The affidavit said the data shows that Coble’s phone left the area of King’s apartment at 1:24 a.m. on July 21, arriving at Winns Church Road in Hanover County at 2:54 a.m. It left the area about 12 minutes later and was back in Newport News at 4:47 a.m.
Coble was arrested on Aug. 12. His lawyer, Richard Quitiquit, could not be reached for comment.
Though investigators believe King was killed in Hampton, prosecutors say there’s no solid proof of that. There were no bullet holes, shell casings or other evidence of the slaying found in homes on the Peninsula.
But while it’s unclear exactly where the homicide took place, Virginia law allows cases to proceed in the jurisdiction where the body was found. A probable cause hearing is slated for Hanover General District Court on Dec. 6 on charges of first-degree murder and using a firearm in a felony.
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