Just a day shy of the day 6-year-old Alexander Paul Glanz’s lifeless body was found 28 years ago, a Hanover County jury found his accused killer guilty of first-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile.
John Bradley “Brad” Crawford, who was 19 at the time of the crime, will be sentenced by Circuit Court Judge J. Overton Harris on Feb. 17.
On Friday, the six-man, six-woman jury recommended he be sentenced to 70 years, 35 years per charge.
Over the course of two days, they deliberated about six hours on the verdict and another hour on the sentencing.
The boy’s body was found by a man walking in a field near trees on Cold Harbor Road on Dec. 6, 1980. The Henrico County youngster had been snatched from his home on Dec. 3 when he returned home from school. Hypothermia claimed his life sometime between those dates.
He was discovered wearing only socks and underwear. He had been sexually assaulted.
His mother, Diane Glanz, relived her loss again after Crawford’s previous trials—in March 2007 and March 2008—were declared mistrials.
On Monday, Commonwealth’s Attorney R.E. “Trip” Chalkley III said he was “incredibly pleased that Mr. Crawford will not be back on the streets of Hanover County or the Commonwealth of Virginia.
“It is a testament to the cold case investigators from Henrico [County] and Sgt. [R. Glenn] Schneider from the Hanover [County] Sheriff’s Office and my entire staff that we were able to achieve two verdicts of guilty.”
Chalkley, who presented the Commonwealth’s case in the second trial, said “the difference was, obviously, number one, Teresa Wade coming forward.”
Wade was a former classmate of Crawford’s at Lee-Davis High School.
She contacted his office after the March 2008 trial, saying she had overheard Crawford at a party making statements that “I tied him up. He was kicking. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”
“I heard [Crawford] say [the victim] was yelling and no one could hear,” Wade said during testimony last week.
Chalkley also said he believed that changing “the order of our testimony to make it more understandable to the jury” was a factor in the verdicts.
“And, of course, I can’t say enough about the jurors who obviously paid great attention during the trial and took what they heard.” He said they were “devoted to the case and devoted to seeking justice.”
Defense attorney Ed Riley, on the other hand, said Monday that he was “very disappointed. My client is extremely upset, very disappointed with their verdict.”
He said that Crawford maintains “his innocence and he is grappling with his future and what options he now has available to him.”
He also said his “client definitely has indicated to me a desire to appeal.” He said they have “a number of very solid appeal issues here and some unique issues that you don’t see very often coming in cases.”
Primary to any appeal would be the inclusion of the abduction of two Hanover County sisters in May 1981, Riley added.
Crawford was indicted in the Glanz case in October 2006, just prior to his scheduled release from prison on those abduction charges. He had pleaded guilty in 1982.
Riley also said, should they take the case before the Virginia Court of Appeals, that his client’s constitutional rights were “violated . . . with respect to that delay,” which “made it very difficult to prepare a defense in some ways.”
Hanover Sheriff V. Stuart Cook released this statement on Monday: “We are extremely pleased and appreciative of the jury’s hard work and diligence in returning a guilty verdict. The successful prosecution in this case has been a while in coming and is the culmination of a great deal of hard work by investigators from the Henrico Division of Police, the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, scientists of the Virginia Consolidated Laboratory and members of the Henrico and Hanover Commonwealth Attorney’s Offices. We are most happy for the family members of little Alex Glanz and while we realize that nothing will undo that tragic and heinous crime, we hope they can now find some peace.”
Bill McKelway of Media General News Service contributed to this article.