The Delaware Department of Correction has announced the death of James Virdin, a 52-year-old inmate who was incarcerated at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center (JTVCC). Virdin, who had been serving a life sentence for first-degree murder and theft, was found unconscious in his single-occupant cell during a routine security check on Monday.
Correctional officers discovered Virdin at around 1:30 p.m., unresponsive from an apparent suicide attempt and immediately initiated life-saving measures, which were continued by facility medical staff. Paramedics from Emergency Medical Services arrived at the facility and took over efforts to revive Virdin. Despite these efforts, he was pronounced dead at 2:22 p.m. by medical providers from Bayhealth Hospital, Kent Campus, via on-site paramedics.
Virdin had been in DOC custody since 1998, serving a life sentence without parole for the 1998 murder of his wife, Stefanie Virdin, who was nine months pregnant at the time of her death. According to court records, Virdin was convicted of first-degree murder and theft of $1,000 or more.
The victim in this case is Stefanie Virdin, who was the wife of Virdin at the time of Stefanie’s murder. In September 1998, Stefanie was carrying a full-term fetus and was due to give birth on Monday, September 21. Early that Monday morning, Stefanie’s mother was alarmed because she had not seen or spoken with her daughter since Saturday afternoon. Her mom had spent all day Sunday trying to locate her daughter. She testified that she had called the Virdins’ apartment “30,000 times from Sunday morning until Sunday night.” She also said she “was out riding the roads looking at all hospitals. I called Beebe hospital. I called Christian hospital. I called Kent General Hospital. I rode through Kent General Hospital parking lot about three or four times.” Therefore, when she woke up early on Monday morning, she decided to drive over to the Virdins’ apartment to look for Stefanie.
Arriving at approximately 8 a.m., her mother entered through the front door using keys that Stefanie had given her.
Inside the apartment, her mother encountered Virdin but not Stefanie. She asked Virdin where Stefanie was, saying, as she recalled in her testimony, “Where is Stefanie? I’ve been calling 30,000 times from Sunday morning and I had no answer.” Virdin told her mother that Stefanie had spent the night with certain relatives. Her mother left the apartment. Using her car phone, she learned that Stefanie had not, in fact, spent the night with these relatives and that they did not know where Stefanie was. She made calls to other relatives, but none of them had seen Stefanie.
Mom decided that she wanted to go back to the apartment, but that she wanted the police to accompany her because she was frightened. She drove to a police station, arriving there at approximately 9:00 a.m. At first, it appeared that no officers were immediately available, but mom testified that she “was pretty pushy about getting an officer to go with me,” telling an officer on duty, Sergeant Timmons, “It can’t wait.” She testified that she was “visibly upset” and “crying.” Sergeant Timmons agreed to accompany her to the Virdins’ apartment, following her there in his police car. On the drive over, she left a message on Virdin’s machine warning him that she was arriving with a police officer and that he should dispose of any drugs he was keeping.
Mom and Sergeant Timmons arrived at the apartment and entered using the key again. Virdin was not there. They each proceeded to check through different areas of the apartment. Timmons came upon the bedroom door, finding it locked.
Through the locked door, Timmons could hear the air conditioner running inside the bedroom. With mom standing behind him, he jimmied open the door with a penknife and took a quick look inside the bedroom to verify that no one was there. Seeing nothing amiss, he left the bedroom, leaving the door unlocked. According to Timmons, the whole apartment was very neat and clean. This search took about ten minutes, after which Timmons and mom left the apartment, Timmons leaving his business card on a coffee table with a written request to Virdin to call him immediately.
Later in the afternoon, Sergeant Timmons learned that a Dodge pickup truck recently traded in by Virdin had been stolen from the lot of a car dealership. At approximately 3:30 p.m., he put out a general bulletin to be on the lookout for the stolen truck and for Virdin as a suspect in the theft. Timmons also broadcast the tag number of Virdin’s Dodge Durango, a separate car the existence of which he had learned of through the mom, in an attempt to locate the Durango and Stefanie. Throughout the day, Timmons made additional stops at the apartment to knock on the door. Using phone numbers given to him by mom, he also called various family members and left messages on the Virdins’ answering machine. As the afternoon wore on, concern grew over Stefanie’s absence. Timmons briefed others in the department on the situation. A missing person report was filed at approximately 5:30 on Monday evening.
In a phone conversation at some point in the afternoon, mom told Timmons that she and her husband wanted to check the apartment again.
Timmons advised her that before returning, she should contact Corporal Graham, who was scheduled to relieve Timmons, so that Graham could accompany the parents to the apartment in order to avoid any “problems.” Timmons thus informed Graham that the parents “may stop by the department to have an officer respond to Mrs. Virdin’s apartment,” and briefed Graham on the general situation, including Timmons’ own efforts throughout the day. When the parents called the station to state that they wished to return to the apartment, Graham arranged to meet them there.
At approximately 8:00 on Monday evening, Corporal Graham and the parents entered the apartment, using, as before, the key. The parents and Corporal Graham each looked in various rooms of the apartment. Again, everything was neat and apparently in order. Reaching the bedroom door, Graham saw that it was locked and informed the parents that he could not open it. The father jimmied the door open with Corporal Graham standing behind him. The parents entered the room and walked to the right side of the bed. Stefanie’s father smelled a “terrible stench” as he entered the room. Corporal Graham walked into the bedroom and proceeded to check a closet on the left side of the bed.
Stefanie’s body was lying on the ground on the right side of the bed, partially obscured by pillows. Her mother saw the body and screamed. Corporal Graham took the parents out of the bedroom and then returned inside. Looking at the body, he had “no doubt” that Stefanie was dead. Virdin became a suspect in his wife’s homicide.
About an hour later, the police found Virdin driving the stolen truck. Virdin was brought to the Dover Police Department. Virdin waived his Miranda rights and gave an audiotaped and videotaped interview in which he confessed to the murder.
According to Virdin, on Saturday morning he and Stefanie were in the bedroom arguing about Virdin’s drug habit and the money it consumed. There was some pushing and shoving between the two of them. Virdin “lost all control,” and the two of them ended up on the floor beside the bed. Virdin sat on Stefanie, apparently with his knees on her, who was lying on her back, and choked her to death. Virdin then covered her up with pillows and left the apartment in search of drugs. Virdin also confessed to having stolen the pickup truck using a spare key he had retained.
On Monday the Delaware State Police were notified and responded to JTVCC to conduct an independent investigation into Virdin’s death. His body has been turned over to the Division of Forensic Science for an official determination of the cause of death.