Rashard Perrish Smith received more than 18 years and co-defendant Joshua Roderick received nearly 16 years, according to the office.
Final defendants sentenced to prison in Dumfries hotel drug trafficking conspiracy
Crime
EDITOR’S NOTE: Manassas officials canceled October’s First Friday after a downtown killing. The letter below is from Dan Maillard of Manassas. The views are the writer’s.
Although happy to see that the City of Manassas has some shred of dignity left, per usual, it seems not enough. I am speaking of the terrible death of Ashley, but worse, the seemingly lost leadership of this town and even the Commonwealth.
A passenger was killed early Wednesday after a vehicle left Richmond Highway in Stafford and caught fire, the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
Deputies are still trying to identify the driver of a black SUV who stopped and pulled the other occupant from the burning vehicle. The passenger was pronounced dead at the scene.
Prince William County prosecutors secured justice for two men killed in a 2020 house party shooting in Dale City.
On July 10, 2026, Karriem Jackson, 31, was sentenced to 198 years in prison with 55 years suspended, leaving 143 years to serve. A Prince William County jury convicted him August 19, 2025, of two counts of first-degree murder and additional charges including aggravated malicious wounding and firearm offenses.
Prince William County police have arrested two people in the shooting death of an 18-year-old Manassas man.
Detectives charged Markiss Alexander Medrano, 18, of Manassas, and a 16-year-old male juvenile from Manassas with second-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Both were arrested June 25. Medrano is being held without bond, while the juvenile is at the Juvenile Detention Center. Court dates are pending.
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Witnesses described a suspect, and officers quickly detained Emmanuel Killeen, 24, also of Fredericksburg, nearby. Killeen was found in possession of two firearms and has been charged with two counts of carrying a concealed weapon. He is being held without bond at the Rappahannock Regional Jail and remains a person of interest in the homicide. A verbal argument between the victim and another party preceded the shooting, according to the initial investigation.
Detectives continue to process evidence at the scene. The department has increased patrol presence in the Bragg Hill area and thanked the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office for its assistance. The Fredericksburg Police Department expressed its deepest condolences to Ruiz Mejia’s family and friends.
An Alexandria man with a prior conviction in a Potomac Mills shooting was sentenced to four years in prison for illegally possessing a machine gun.
Jamarion Dawon Jackson, 23, was driving more than 100 mph on the right shoulder of Interstate 95 in Fairfax County on April 17, 2025, when a Virginia State Trooper tried to pull him over. Jackson crashed into a parked vehicle and two others on the roadway, then fled on foot before being apprehended after trying to enter several vehicles. A loaded handgun with a machine gun conversion device was found in his car.
Officers responded to a report of shots fired around 9:57 p.m. on June 15 in the area of Old Centreville Road and Parkland Street near Manassas. The shooting occurred in the Bull Run Mobile Home Community near Peppertree Lane and Pebble Lane, police said.
The victim, Luis Angel Chavez, 18, of Manassas, was shot in the upper body. He tried to leave the scene but collapsed in the backyard of a home on Parrish Lane. Officers performed life-saving measures, but Chavez was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Emotionally, he is devastated,” lawyer Thad Furlong said of Jing S. Dong, the Fredericksburg Free Press reported. “He is in very much pain.”
“That is the big question of the hour,” Furlong added about the cause of the May 29 wreck.
Manassas City Police are investigating an attempted abduction that happened on June 7, 2026, at Dean Park on 9501 Dean Park Lane. A mother said two unknown males approached her 4-year-old daughter around 8:50 p.m. and tried to lure her away with candy. The girl’s 6-year-old sister screamed for their mother, causing both males to flee.