A man is being held without bond in Fairfax County after being charged with the first degree murder of a Reston man in Herndon during the early morning hours of May 24.
The incident marks the first murder to occur in Herndon since the May 2004 gang-related shooting of 17-year-old Herndon resident, Jose Sandoval.
Donald Lee Caison, Jr., 24, of no fixed home address, was charged with the murder of 34-year-old William Green of Reston after turning himself in to Herndon Police on the evening of May 24, according to Herndon Police spokesperson Lt. Donald Amos. If convicted, Caison will face a maximum sentence of 40 years, Amos said.
Green was found stabbed "multiple times in the upper body" on the 1100 block of Clarke Street in Herndon at approximately 2:18 a.m. after ambulance and police units were alerted to an assault in the area, Amos said.
Green was taken to Herndon High School where he was air-lifted by a helicopter to Inova Fairfax Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
Caison and Green had been visiting a female acquaintance at 1103 Clarke Street prior to the stabbing, Amos said. Green fled north up Clarke Street after an altercation between the two began, police say, where he was stabbed multiple times.
Caison, who had initially fled the scene, was identified as a suspect by mid-day Wednesday. He turned himself in at the Herndon Police Department at approximately 9 p.m.
THE HOME AT 1103 Clarke Street was also the site of a suicide in early January of this year, after a long-time tenant of the property, Brian Finch, 43, doused his body with gasoline and lit himself on fire, according to neighbors and police sources.
"It's unusual that two events of this nature could happen so close together [in time] on the same property," said Amos. "Clarke street is a relatively quiet neighborhood."
"I've lived here for 11 years and I've never seen anything like this before," said Julie George, a resident of Clarke Street who said she was awoken around 3 a.m. on the night of the murder to see several police cars on her street. "You hear about people's bikes getting stolen or someone losing some money out of an unlocked car, but nothing like this."
Two women answering the door at 1103 Clarke Street last Thursday declined a request for an interview.
The five-bedroom single family home at 1103 Clarke Street is a rental property that has belonged to Herndon resident John Kerby since 1984, according to Fairfax County property tax records.
Kerby said in a phone interview that he had first been made aware of the incident after visiting the house around noon on May 24 to install an air-conditioning unit and that he has not spoken with police or the female acquaintance of Caison and Green since the murder took place. He added that all of the information he has received about the murder has come from newspaper and broadcast news sources.
He said that while he does not see a connection between the two incidents, he plans to monitor the property more closely in the future.
THE HERNDON POLICE said that while they are "concerned" about the crime, they will not change any of their procedures or patrols in its wake, Amos said.
"We're always concerned when we get any type of violent crime in Herndon," Amos said. "But the community shouldn't worry because this wasn't a random crime."
"The suicide [in January], there's not much you can do about that," as a police officer, he added. "The [stabbing] was not a random act of violence ... so it's not an issue with the neighborhood."
"No jurisdiction wants to have homicides," Amos said. "I'm just proud of the criminal investigators in this case and the outstanding job they did bringing this to a successful conclusion."
"It's pretty scary," George said, while standing outside in view of the bloodstains still on the sidewalk in front of her house. "I'm really scared to be honest. I'm a single parent, I have two kids and we talked about it."
"Something like this can happen anywhere, and unfortunately it happened here on Clarke Street."