Just two days before Edna Webb was found dead in the kitchen of her home in James City County, a judge ordered her 34-year-old son to vacate her house within 30 days.
Michael Webb had destroyed his mother’s property, broken house rules and threatened to kill her, court documents state. His mother filed an eviction document in court to make him leave.
Two days after the court eviction order, on Wednesday, police received a call around 10 a.m. from one of the Edna Webb’s coworkers: The 64-year-old had not come to work that morning, and people were concerned.
Police arrived to find Edna Webb deceased from apparent blunt force trauma in the kitchen area of the home she had shared with her son, police said. Police arrested Michael Webb and charged him with second degree murder that evening.
A case file dating back to 2002 indicates Michael Webb suffers from mental health issues, has a criminal history as both an adult and juvenile and committed violence against his mother several times.
Court documents also show Michael Webb was released from a 15-year sentence in state prison in recent years, and was released from probation in February.
“I am very much ready and willing to return to society as a productive and as a humbeled [sic] citizen,” Michael Webb wrote from prison in 2010. “Now having spirituality I feel that I can be benifitial [sic] to a religious community. I also plan to start a family.”
‘Threats to kill’
Court documents filed in the Williamsburg-James City County Circuit and General District courts – dating back to 2000 – detail a strained relationship between Michael Alan Webb and his mother, Edna.
Just a month before her death on April 20, Edna Webb filed a summons for unlawful detainer – a civil claim for eviction – against her son, according to court documents filed in the Williamsburg-James City County General District Court.
The document states Michael Webb should be removed from the property based on “willfull [sic] destruction of property, threats to kill, telling me to kill self…bringing girl in house for days, breaking rules all house rules.”
The case was settled May 15, with a judgement giving Michael Webb 30 days to vacate the residence in the 1800 block of Ferrell Drive in Brookside Heights.
Court documents show both Edna and Michael Webb were living at that address in Brookside Heights.
A criminal history
Court documents also show Michael Webb has a criminal history spanning almost half his life, and served 15 years in state prison for committing an armed robbery when he was 19 years old.
Michael Webb was sentenced in May 2002 to life plus 13 years in prison with all but 15 years suspended for robbing a clerk at a 7-Eleven in Grove.
He was found guilty in on charges of robbery, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a serious offense as a juvenile, and wearing a mask in a public place.
When he was 17, he was also found guilty of assault and battery of a family member, third offense in the Williamsburg-James City County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, according to an exhibit used as evidence in a criminal trial in 2002.
Michael Webb’s mother was the victim of the three assaults, according to a Nov. 6, 2001 bond hearing document.
“Mr. Webb appears to have only a tenuous grasp of reality,” the document states. “Extremely dangerous to public.”
Released from prison
Court documents do not state when Michael Webb was released from prison, but court documents provide evidence he was out of prison since at least June 2016.
A February 2017 letter from a probation and parole office in Williamsburg says the probation officer “will close interest in his case,” and the “Subject’s supervision has been acceptable at this time.”
The letter states: “Webb has been attending his mental health meetings with Genesis Counseling Center, reported as instructed, and was placed in a low level supervision in June 2016. Conversation with the Subject’s mother, who is a Social Worker with Eastern State Hospital, confirmed she will continue to take him to his counseling meetings. He has no financial obligations.”
A December 2004 letter sent from Michael Webb to the Williamsburg-James City County courthouse states he was “a victim of child abuse by mother.”
The letter also says he no longer stays at his mother’s home and does not request her assistance “due to personal issues that may evoke confrontation due to mental illness.”
“On 11/6/01 I entered the adult [Department of Corrections] at the young age of 19 as adolesent [sic] after going back and forth between juvenile [detention facilities] and Mental Health Hospitals since the age of 15,” Michael Webb wrote in a letter dated May 20, 2010.
“I am now 27 and have been in prison for 9 years… In prison I have matured and come to the conclusion that I was not a hardened sinister criminal.”
Fearing can be reached at sarah.f@localvoicemedia.com.
