NORFOLK, Va. – A hired gun who was paid to knock off a U.S. Navy officer by his wife, was found guilty Friday of murdering the seaman as he pulled up to the ATM at Langley FCU in April 2007.
Ensign Cory Voss, stationed aboard the Norfolk-based frigate USS Elrod, was slain in what first appeared to be a robbery gone bad outside a credit union ATM. Voss, a father of two children, was asked by his wife to go to the ATM.
The sailor’s body, riddled with gunshots, was found slumped over the driver’s wheel of his pick-up the following day in the parking lot next to the credit union branch. Surveillance videos taken at the ATM show Voss trying to withdraw funds from his credit union account, which held only $5, as a gun-wielding assailant surfaced from behind the driver’s seat.
Weeks later the wife, Catherina Voss, 33, confessed to the gruesome crime, and to hiring a hit man so she and her extramarital lover could reap the sailor’s Navy death benefits and life insurance.
David Runyon, 38, of Morgantown, W.Va., who prosecutors said was the hit man who entered Voss' pick-up truck and fired five shots, now faces possible execution. The jury will hear arguments Wednesday on whether Runyon, a former Army soldier and police officer, is eligible for the death penalty.
Michael Draven, 29, of Newport News, who was having an affair with Catherina Voss, was also found guilty in the plot and will be sentenced in November.
According to testimony at trial, the plot was designed to allow Catherina Voss and Draven to be together and collect $400,000 in life insurance money. Almost $100,000 in Navy death benefits were spent within months of the crime. Draven and Runyon knew each other from studies in which they acted as test subjects for medical research.
Evidence introduced at trial included a map with scrawled notes — found in Runyon's truck in Runyon's handwriting — with the reference to "Cory," "Langley Federal Credit Union" and a 1997 gray Ford Ranger pickup, with the tail gate down and left hubcab missing. That was an exact description of Cory Voss' truck, and the defense failed to explain it away.
