CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Valarie McElroy’s daughters remembered their mother as a beautiful woman with a “heart of pure gold.”
During a plea hearing Monday morning, Chesapeake Circuit Court Chief Judge Marjorie Arrington read letters written by her two daughters, Candice Daniels and Lynthis McElroy as Anthony Johnson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to nearly 23 years in prison.
On November 27, 2022 my heart was shattered into a million pieces when Anthony Johnson brutally took my mother Valarie McElroy’s life. I never knew pain could cut so deep into my soul until that day. My family and I were forever changed. My grandparents lost their daughter. My aunt and uncle lost their sister. My sister and I were robbed of our mother.
— Lynthis McElroy, victim impact statement excerpt
At 58, Valarie McElroy was proud to be part of the deaf ministry community.
“I was able to be myself,” Lynthis McElroy said. “That’s all she wanted because she didn’t get to have that in her life. She had to conform and be what everybody else wanted her to be. As far as me and Candice … we were able to be whatever it is that we wanted to be. We’re both business owners, we never had to be anything but ourselves.”
The girls moved away from Virginia to start their careers.
“My sister and I both moved to better our lives so we could provide a better opportunity for our mother,” Candice Daniels said. “Our mother was 100% behind us … in full support, knowing that my sister and I intentions were to create a better life. That’s the extent of her heart. She was willing to let both of her daughters go free and figure it out.”
Said Lynthis McElroy: “I’ve always taken care of my mom, from a very young age. It was almost like I was her parent. I feel like me moving to Texas a couple of years back, … it almost feels like I just left my mom because I was always overprotective. Even when I joined the military, I always called and made sure everything was OK. I never wanted to leave my mom alone.”
Valarie McElroy’s daughters recalled red flags in the relationship with Johnson, who is also hearing impaired.
“My mother had a very caring and giving heart,” Daniels said. “She was very understanding and unfortunately, it just so happened that in this instance, that her being understanding, it failed her.”
Days after Thanksgiving in 2022, their uncle, Rodney Blount, called Chesapeake Police to request a wellness check on for sister on Robert Hall Boulevard. The door was barricaded, then police officers climbed through her apartment window to find her stabbed several times in her bedroom. Johnson was lying in her bed with ‘superficial wounds’ and a kitchen knife nearby.
Blount recounts details of the day in front of a judge, as a “senseless crime committed unnecessarily” adding “it’s a feeling I wish on no one.” Blount recounted the loud shriek his mother made when he shared his sister was killed.
Court documents outline that Valarie McElroy ended the relationship with Johnson, yet he proceeded to stalk her by coming to her job at Food Lion and her apartment uninvited.
10 On Your Side’s cameras were not allowed into the courtroom as two interpreters assisted Johnson while he entered a plea agreement for second-degree murder.
Johnson was sentenced to 22 years and 11 months in prison. The maximum sentence is 40 years, with 17 years and one month suspended. The stabbing in commission of a felony charge was set aside, or nolle prosequi.
Woman killed in apparent domestic-related incident on Robert Hall Blvd in Chesapeake
“My mother, she did the best she could,” Daniels said. “She was also scared. I feel like my mother was just a human who dealt with somebody who she thought she could trust, and she got betrayed. In reality, my mother was a very wise woman. Even though she was visually impaired and hearing impaired, she was very wise, very intuitive.”
“What [Johnson] did was very horrific,” Lynthis McElroy said. “Nobody should ever go through what my sister and I just went through.”
Her girls will continue to be her voice.
“We just need better communities, especially as [Black] women,” Daniels said, with passion. “Black women deserve to be protected. For me, that’s what I plan on doing and advocating for is the protection of Black women, because it’s so sad how we are not protected at all.”
The family will also advocate for those experiencing domestic violence in the deaf or hearing-impaired community.
“Deaf people or those hard of hearing … their voices need to be heard too,” Lynthis McElroy said. “Sometimes people, shrug it off because they are hearing impaired or a deaf person. They have a voice, too, and they matter, too. They go through normal everyday stuff like domestic violence. It’s a lot in that community.”
