MANASSAS, Va. — Jurors in the John Sherwood murder trial had the chance to send a message to the victim’s family, and to the community that the murder of a 21-year-old wife and mother was a heinous crime. It took jurors 46 minutes to return a verdict finding Sherwood guilty of 1st-degree murder in the death of his wife, Erica. It was the second day of trial in which the killer took the stand seeking a reduced 2nd-degree murder conviction.
On December 13, jurors took 46 minutes to return a verdict finding Sherwood guilty of 1st-degree murder in the death of his wife, Erica. It was the second day of his trial, the day the killer took the stand seeking a reduced 2nd-degree murder conviction.
“We went through and tried to make sure we were doing the right things for Erica, and John, and for what he did, and we came back and we believe his crime was really heinous,” a juror who spoke with us on a condition of anonymity. “We thought [John Sherwood] had multiple chances to stop, and that he continued.”
Sherwood had been separated from his wife in the days leading up to New Year’s 2015. He went to see her at a friends house in Dale City on Dec. 31, 2014, where he got into an argument after he suspected her of cheating on him.
Prosecutors said Sherwood grabbed a knife and attacked his wife, jabbing the knife through a bedroom door and stabbing her in the process. With the knife bent, Sherwood grabbed another knife and stabbed his wife seven times, and cut her 44 times as she tried to defend herself.
Sherwood told the jury he blacked out when killed his wife. He also told them he grew up in a house where Sharia law was the rule, and a woman cheating on her husband was not to be tolerated.
“We thought, should we do life imprisonment? Or, a group of people wanted to do 151 years [in prison],” the juror told us.
The 1st-degree murder conviction comes with 100 years in prison. But jurors thought adding an additional 51 years would send a message to Sherwood, to Erica’s family, and to the community that this type of domestic violence is not okay.
“That would have sent a powerful message to him, and the community as well, and the parole board. We wanted to make sure that anyone reviewing his case 36 years from now — he would be eligible for parole at age 60 — we considered this heinous crime, and we felt that he needed to be punished for it,” said a second juror who spoke to us on a condition of anonymity.
On the third day of the trial, jurors returned a sentence of 100 years in prison. They thought a parole board reviewing the case might find that the additional 51 years tacked on the sentence to be unusual punishment and that it could lead to his early parole.
Jurors also considered issuing a $100,000 fine to Sherwood but decided not to when they learned the money would not go to the victim’s family, but instead to the state.
The jury was made up of men and women ranging in ages between 25 and 75, all from different ethnic backgrounds. The two jurors who spoke with us asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, specifically following comments Sherwood made about Sharia law.
There have been 23 22 murders in Prince William County in 2016. Many of them, to include a case where rookie police officer Ashley Guindon was killed on her first day at work in February – involved domestic violence.
“We live in white walls, and we never see this kind of thing. And when you start talking to people, you start to realize it’s happening more and more than you think,” one juror said.
“I was not aware that so many homicides had been committed [this year in Prince William C:ounty], and that so many of them have been contributed to domestic violence,” said the second juror.
