Before a murder conviction had landed William Virgil behind bars for nearly three decades, he hadn't been a saint – he'd conned, he'd thieved, he'd hustled – so much so that when he was convicted of killing 54-year-old Retha Welch despite his insistence he was innocent, he didn't bemoan his fate.
In some ways, he said, maybe he'd had it coming.
"Karma is a beast, you know what I'm saying?" Virgil said in 2016. "The Bible says you reap what you sow, and you do."
Still, he said, he didn't deserve to spend 28 years in prison for something he didn't do, and, after his conviction was overturned in 2015, he'd hoped to live to see the people who put him behind bars reap what they had sown, too.
But he didn't. Earlier this year, in January 2022, Virgil died in a Cincinnati hotel room, where he'd stayed the night before a medical checkup. He hadn't felt well since his release from prison.
"When he had a lot of discomfort in his body, he would always take a bath," Elliot Slosar, Virgil's lawyer, recently told The Enquirer. "They found him passed away in the hotel room bathroom. It was clear he'd either just finished taking a bath or was just about to take one."
Listen:Mysterious death focus of 3rd season of hit true-crime podcast 'Accused'
Virgil's conviction had been the focus of eight episodes of the second season of Accused, a true-crime podcast reported by The Enquirer. A ninth episode has just been released to address Virgil's death and the wrongful imprisonment civil suit Virgil had filed, which is still pending.
Welch, the victim at the center of the case, was a prison minister who had met Virgil while he served time for burglary, receiving stolen property and carrying a concealed weapon.
Welch was a God-fearing woman who'd battled substance abuse issues. While praising her spirit and generosity, her friends said they worried that she'd gotten too friendly with some of the convicts she'd counseled. Some stayed with her in her Newport apartment after their release from prison. She and Virgil's friendship had sometimes been intimate.
That overlap led police to focus on Virgil as a possible suspect after Welch's assaulted and stabbed body was discovered in April 1987. As highlighted in Accused, however, several other investigatory paths were overlooked, including one centering on a violent man named Isaac Grubbs who a witness said had argued with Welch over the phone before her death.
Whatever happened to:The wrongful conviction case filed by William Virgil of Accused's 2nd season
When Welch's body was discovered, she'd been dead a couple of days. Grubbs, meanwhile, had died two days before that discovery when Newport police shot him after they said he lunged at officers with a knife. Tips that subsequently tied the knife-wielding Grubbs to Welch's stabbing death were not investigated by detectives, who had already zeroed in on Virgil as the killer.
After maintaining his innocence for decades, Virgil finally won a motion to have DNA evidence collected in the case tested. Of three semen samples found inside Welch's body, none matched Virgil, leading to the 2015 overturning of his conviction. At the time, Campbell County Prosecutor Michelle Snodgrass said the evidence did not clear Virgil of the crime, but when a grand jury declined to indict him to face a second trial, she didn't refile charges.
In the meantime, several people tied to the case – including a pair of initial investigators – have given depositions in Virgil's still-pending civil suit, which is set to continue in his absence. A cousin will replace Virgil to represent his estate.
"It's heartbreaking that William won't be there to see a trial," Slosar said, "but there's not a ton that will change outside of William's presence being deeply missed. He did give a deposition. The jury will hear his testimony."
To learn more about what's to come in Virgil's case, check out "The Homegoing" – Episode 9 of Season 2 of Accused: The Unsolved Murder of Retha Welch.
Accused is available on podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Episodes and additional content is also available at www.accusedpodcast.com.
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