City of Richmond

100 Greshamwood Pl, Richmond, VA

Other

Domestic

NOTE: Ms. Squire was set on fire 12/31/2007

BY REED WILLIAMS

Media General News Service

As Angela Squire was dying, she called 911 from her motel room in South Richmond.

“My boyfriend has set me on fire,“ Squire tells a dispatcher. “Please. I am dying. Please.“
Richmond prosecutor Julie McConnell played the 911 recording in court yesterday for Richmond Circuit Judge Walter W. Stout III.

The judge sentenced Stacey A. Carter, 41, to life in prison for murdering Squire, prompting a woman seated among Squire’s family to shriek with joy.

The attack on Squire, a 33-year-old nurse and mother of four children, took place shortly before 6 a.m. on New Year’s Eve at America’s Best Value Inn at 100 Greshamwood Place off Midlothian Turnpike. She suffered third-degree burns over 70 percent of her body and died nine days later on Jan. 9.

In the courtroom yesterday, Carter apologized to family members about Squire’s death, but added that it was a case of domestic violence and that he had been a victim, too. He also claimed that Squire and a boyfriend had plotted to kill him, an assertion prosecutors said there is no evidence to support.

“She got caught in her own game,“ said Carter, who was wearing a dark-colored suit as he stood beside his court-appointed attorney.

McConnell argued that Carter killed Squire because they had broken up the day before and he was jealous because he believed she was with another man.

In the hours before the attack, the former couple’s three sons heard Carter on the phone trying to get someone to give him a gun, and the children hid his army knife because they were afraid he would hurt their mother, McConnell said.

Carter later went to the Best Value Inn, where Squire was staying, and chased her into an anteroom leading to the motel lobby. After trapping her in the room, Carter poured gasoline on her head from a 48-ounce plastic juice bottle and set her on fire, McConnell said.

Engulfed in flames, Squire ran to her motel room, used a bathroom sink to douse the fire and called 911. Her then-5-year-old son, who is not Carter’s child, was also in the room. She passed out later that day and never woke up.

Carter later told his and Squire’s children that he had killed their mother for them, according to testimony.

Another gruesome attack by a man on a woman took place within a few minutes of Squire’s in Richmond on Dec. 31.

The man was sentenced in September to life in prison, also by Judge Stout, for ambushing Davette Hayes and striking her repeatedly with a machete. Hayes, who suffered permanent injuries and scarring, attended Carter’s sentencing yesterday with a Richmond police detective to show support for Squire’s family.

On the witness stand, one of Squire’s sisters, Michelle Ray, let out a deep sigh and hung her head. “My whole life is falling apart,“ she told the court. “I’m angry inside.“