James Edward Powell will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole after taking a plea in which he will serve four consecutive life sentences for the August 2017 murders of James and Janice Harris and James and Peggy Whitley who were shot to death while playing a regular Sunday night game of cards at the Harris’s home in the Glenview community.

Superior Court Judge Beecher Gray also sentenced Powell to 317 to 393 months for the second-degree murder of Travis Johnson in January of 2018. The second-degree murder sentence is to run concurrently, Gray said.

“The district attorney’s office and the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office remain saddened by these violent and senseless crimes,” said a joint statement released by DA Kim Gourier Scott and Sheriff Tyree Davis this afternoon. “The horror that these three families have had to endure is unimaginable. By the way of James Powell’s plea today, all pending matters regarding the August 2017 murders of James and Janice Harris and James and Peggy Whitley of the Glenview community, and the January 2018 murder of Travis Johnson of Deer Run Drive in Roanoke Rapids, have been resolved.”  

The statement said the evidence in these two cases supported the court’s resolution to the cases – specifically Powell’s involvement. “Currently, there is no new evidence in the possession of the district attorney’s office or the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office that identifies any other known, or unknown, accomplices to these crimes.

“Moving forward, should additional information present itself, the Halifax County Sheriff’s Office will investigate it thoroughly in conjunction with the district attorney’s office. The district attorney’s office stands ready to prosecute all crimes that are charged and supported by evidence in this case.”

Part of Powell’s plea agreement states that all other pending cases against him will be dismissed.

“This was a very difficult case,” said David Braswell, who along with James Antinore represented Powell. “There were over 170,000 pages of discovery. It was evident to us that conducting a jury trial – a jury would not listen to anything we had to say.”

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Powell’s sentencing occurred after about an hour and 15-minute break in which Gray ordered the court at ease – a sign that law enforcement and court officials suspected meant Powell refused the plea.

Around 11:45 this morning, however, Gray re-entered the court and a few minutes later the plea proceedings began.

Powell pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of the Whitley’s and the Harris’s and to the count of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Johnson, which occurred on Deer Run Drive. Dillon Irby is already serving up to 20 years in Johnson’s death.

Assistant District Attorney Keith Werner told the court it was through the Johnson murder that authorities began to learn about Powell’s possible role in the Glenview murders.

A large amount of money and drugs were taken in the Johnson murder and Werner said Powell admitted he consumed a lot of the cocaine stolen and began to feel ill. That’s when he began talking about the Whitley and Harris murders.

Members of the Johnson family declined comment when asked by Gray if they had a statement.

Members of the Harris and Whitley families did make statements.

Heather Finch of the Whitley family told the court the things that Powell did “make you weak. It takes a weak person, a weak man, to do these things.”

The family, who all believe more people were involved in the deaths of their loved ones, will continue the fight, Finch said.

Jane Flowers Finch, another member of the Whitley family, described the Whitley’s as caring, thoughtful people who served the community.

“I pray for the victims that you will find peace,” Jane Finch said, then directing her comments to Powell, said, “I pray for you most of all.”

Deborah Hillhorst of the Harris family described her mother as her best friend. “They were the center of everything,” she said of her parents.

Referring to Powell, she said, “I pray this man finds Christ and will finally find a conscience to tell the truth” of others who were involved in the murders of the four close friends.

The family said outside the courthouse they don’t believe Matthew Simms, Keyon West and Dontavious Devonte Cotton had any involvement in the murders. The charges against them were dropped after Powell recanted a statement implicating them. Simms and West have since died – Simms due to a drug overdose and West under mysterious circumstances after his body was found in a vehicle submerged in the Roanoke River.

Amanda Duncan, the Harris’s granddaughter, who found the couples deceased, told the court a simple welfare check turned into a total living nightmare “that I still live today. It hasn’t ended. I still see my grandparents’ lifeless bodies on the floor. I still see the brutal way they were slaughtered from the outside.”

Duncan said she was able to spare her family from seeing the aftermath of the destruction Powell caused to the Whitley and Harris families.

She said she initially wanted to say mean words and make hateful threats to Powell. “And then I realized he wasn’t worth it. He is simply a repeat criminal who is nothing but a coward.”

Despite the dismissals of Cotton, Simms and West, who she affirmed afterward were not involved, Duncan said, “Someone else helped him. This was not a one man show. Justice is now only halfway there.”

The sentence today, however, doesn’t bring her grandparents back, she said. “We lost the glue that held our family together. We lost the home we spent every holiday and birthday at. The memories made at their house are now tarnished with the overpowering memory of that day.”

Duncan said she doesn’t believe life in prison is justice. “It’s a roof over his head, free meals that my family and everyone else has to pay for. It makes me sick to my stomach knowing financially we will support the man responsible for killing my grandparents.”

The only thing that makes the judgment more bearable, Duncan said, is “knowing he will spend the rest of his life behind bars” and knowing “he can’t ruin more peoples’ lives.”

Davis said in the joint statement, “The Halifax County Sheriff’s Office prays that today’s court action brings about some semblance of closure for these three families.  They have had to endure many years of pain and suffering and we only hope that they find some comfort in Powell’s plea.”