'88 murder case goes cold again. After hung jury, no 2nd trial for Morris

Alvin Lee “Butch” Morris walked out of the Albemarle County Circuit courthouse a free man Thursday morning.

Denise Lunsford, commonwealth’s attorney, said in court that she would not prosecute a first-degree murder count and other charges against Morris.

Authorities had accused Morris of shooting and killing Roger L. Shifflett on June 20, 1988, at the now-defunct Southwind Gas and Grocery store on Route 20. The case went to trial in July, but the jury deadlocked 6-6 and a judge declared a mistrial.

“We tried the best trial that I thought we could,” Lunsford said.

Lunsford said the decision not to prosecute the charges again was based on a number of factors, including that she didn’t think it was likely that the case would succeed with a jury a second time around.

Defense attorney Dana Slater said in a statement that she and her client, who she said is innocent, were pleased with Thursday’s announcement.

“In America, we don’t take a man’s liberty away for inferences and suspicions,” Slater said.

Morris, 68, was charged in May 2008 after DNA on cigarette butts found at the scene matched his. Prosecutors have said they believed Morris’ motive could have been to start over with a new wife and family. Morris married Shifflett’s widow about a year after Shifflett’s death and helped raise some of the victim’s children.

Earl Shifflett, Roger’s brother, said he thought Lunsford and the detectives who handled the case in recent years did a wonderful job. However, he said he was unhappy with the resolution of the case.

“I am very saddened that we didn’t get a guilty verdict,” Earl Shifflett said. “There should have been a trial 21 years ago. It shouldn’t have went this long.”

Morris has told police that he was close friends with Roger Shifflett’s wife, Barbara, and often spent time at the store.

The defendant admitted to police that he had chronic alcohol problems in the 1980s, but he has since stopped drinking and smoking and spends his time at Mechanicsville Baptist Church in Gordonsville.

Experts have testified that DNA testing didn’t become sensitive enough to pick up material on cigarette butts until 1994. Judge Cheryl Higgins has noted in a previous ruling that there was a 12-year gap between the availability of technology and when Albemarle police Detective Phil Giles was assigned the case.

Roger Shifflett was a father of five who co-owned the convenience store with his wife. After opening the store in the early morning, Roger Shifflett typically went to the train depot to work as a maintenance foreman with Norfolk Southern Railway.

Morris told police in 1988 and 2008 that he wasn’t feuding with Roger Shifflett. During a 2008 taped interview played during Morris’ trial, Morris said he was relieved that authorities were doing DNA comparisons.

“I know everybody thinks I’m guilty, and my only hope is that something will come and prove I didn’t do it, and DNA is my only hope for that,” Morris said on the tape. “DNA is going to be my salvation. Me and my maker are the only two people who know I didn’t pull the trigger.”

Although Lunsford isn’t prosecuting the charges, they are not dismissed. She acknowledged it’s possible that police could come across more evidence, but the prosecutor said that evidence would have to “substantially change the likelihood to prevail” at trial before she would consider bringing the charges back.