Man found guilty of murdering cousin in Norfolk days after killing 2 loved ones
NORFOLK — A man was found guilty Tuesday of fatally shooting his cousin at an apartment in Norfolk just days after he killed two other loved ones at their Virginia Beach homes.
The jury deliberated almost two hours before convicting Cola Beale IV of first-degree murder and illegal use of a firearm in the March 2022 slaying of Downing McLean. Sentencing was set for Aug. 23.
It was the third murder conviction Beale has received this year for a days-long crime spree that resulted in the deaths of his girlfriend, a man who’d been a father figure to him most of his life, and his cousin. The girlfriend’s dog also was killed after Beale set fire to her house.
Beale was found guilty of the other two murders at the end of a trial held in March in Virginia Beach. Sentencing in that case is scheduled for July 2.
Just as in his Virginia Beach trial, Beale, 32, didn’t react to Wednesday’s verdicts. No family members for him or McLean attended the two-day trial in Norfolk Circuit Court.
The killing spree began March 22, when Beale shot girlfriend Czavi’er Hill during an argument at her home on Baccalaureate Drive. Her body was found two days later when firefighters responded to a blaze at her house. Her black and tan dog, Prince, was found dead in his crate, and her burned car was discovered a short distance from her home.
The day after Hill’s body was found, police discovered the body of Clifton Baxter, 73, in his home. Baxter — a Vietnam veteran suffering from late-stage cancer — was shot once in the head as he lie asleep on a living room sofa, according to prosecutors. McLean, 32, was killed five days later.
Beale was arrested in Hampton a few days after that. He gave interviews to The Virginian-Pilot and other local media outlets from jail, during which he said he felt no remorse and probably would have killed more people if he hadn’t been arrested.
In a taped interview at Virginia Beach police headquarters, Beale told detectives he was upset over a variety of things, including losing his restaurant job, being convicted of a sex crime he said he didn’t commit and problems with his probation in another case. He said he also was angry about Hill’s parents interfering in their relationship. The couple had questioned his intentions with their daughter and were bothered that he didn’t have a job, he said.
Beale told detectives McLean was with him the day he shot Baxter, and had helped him remove items from Hill’s home after he killed her.
On the day Beale shot McLean, they were at an apartment on Sewells Point Road in Norfolk with three other people, including McClean’s girlfriend. Beale said he told the others to leave at some point, and shot McLean twice.
“Mr. McLean was doing too much talking,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Anthony Comento told jurors in his closing argument. “He’d seen some of the things Mr. Beale had done in the days prior… And he became a liability to Mr. Beale.”
Assistant Public Defender Thomas James argued the slaying was not murder because Beale had acted in the heat of passion. He suggested to the jury that Beale was only guilty of manslaughter.
“There’s nothing here to demonstrate premeditation, and there’s nothing here to indicate it was done with malice,” James said.
Comento strongly disagreed. “This is not heat of passion,” the prosecutor said. “Mr. Beale killed Mr. McLean because he’d become a liability. He was running his mouth too much… He shuts him up by shooting him in the mouth, then he shoots him again (in the back) to make sure he stays down. If this is not first-degree murder then I don’t know what is.”
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
