Sherwood guilty of 1st Degree Murder, threw ‘tantrum’ when killed wife

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. — John Sherwood was convicted of first-degree murder in the Jan. 1, 2015 stabbing death of his 21-year-old wife Erica, at a home in Dale City.

It took a jury 46 minutes to render a guilty verdict for prosecutors Rick Conway and Brian Boyle who pushed for the first-degree murder penalty, the strictest allowable by law. Defense attorney Jennifer Zary tried to convince jurors the murder of Erica Sherwood was not premeditated, and that there was an absence of malice in the killing, and that her client deserved an involuntary manslaughter conviction.

Sherwood tried to strike a plea deal for a 2nd-degree murder conviction, but prosecutors weren’t having it and decided to take the case to trial. Sherwood leaves behind a three-year-old son whom she shared with her killer.

Much of the second day of the trial on Tuesday focused on a photo of a penis John Sherwood said he found on a cell phone being used by his estranged wife. The phone belonged to Erica Sherwood’s friend, Sharae Harris, who lived in the house Sherwood was murdered on Concord Drive in Dale City. Erica Sherwood and her then 17-month-old son had been staying with Harris for two days leading up to the New Year’s holiday in late 2014.

Harris testified the photo was sent to her cell phone 14 days before Sherwood was killed, and that the photo was meant for her, not Erica Sherwood. Prosecutors said Sherwood had lost her phone and was using Harris’ to make phone calls and send text messages while she was staying with Harris, whom she had known since childhood.

After showing up unannounced at Harris’ house New Year’s Eve to reconcile with his wife, John Sherwood saw his wife plug Harris’ phone into a kitchen outlet to recharge, rifled through the phone’s text messages, and found the photo.

“I kirked out. I flipped shit, ” Sherwood testified. He apologized to Erica Sherwood’s grieving family members in the courtroom.

Sherwood told the court he suspected for weeks that his wife had been charting on him. In a jealous rage in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2015, the murderer went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and then attacked his wife. He chased her and Harris into a bathroom, and then stabbed his wife seven times, and slashed her 44 times. She used her hands to try to defend herself.

One the stab wounds was to the heart. Medical Examiner Dr. Mehi Koolae testified on Monday that it as the fatal wound.

“She betrayed me. I had a tantrum…it was like a child taking a toy from another and then the other one taking it back. It’s the same thing,” pleaded Sherwood. “Yes, I wanted to hurt her, but I did not want to kill her.”

Sherwood said he suspected his wife of cheating with another man, and that she had been communicating with him on Facebook, Sherwood testified. He also saw his wife and child in the man car before the murder, he told the court.

In a Facebook message, Sherwood told the man to stop seeing his wife, but he declined, Sherwood testified.

“Erica was a very beautiful woman. Any man would have said hello to her,” he added.

Sherwood told the jury he grew up in a home where Sharia law was the norm, and cheating was not allowed.

Prince William County Police Homicide Detective Daniel Downey Jr. read aloud from a transcript of a recorded interview of Sherwood taken at the Eastern District Police Station in Woodbridge about three and a half hours after police found Erica Sherwood’s body at 1:30 a.m.

“I need to see my son. It’s cool to break up with a bitch…but it’s different when you have a child with a woman,” Downey read aloud from the transcript, quoting Sherwood.

Sherwood testified that he wanted to raise his child in a two-parent household. The couple and their son had been living in an apartment in Triangle. They separated six days before the murder.

The arrest

After murdering the mother of his child, Sherwood jumped into a Cadillac parked outside the home on Concord Drive and attempted to flee. It was a car that he shared with his wife, which Erica Sherwood had been driving. He crashed into a tree and then fled on foot into woods.

Now evading police, Sherwood crossed Interstate 95 and was eventually arrested at the Woodbridge Campus of Northern Virginia Community College at 3:19 a.m. In his pocket, police found Sharae Harris’ cell phone containing the photo of the man’s penis, and a gift card to Logans Roadhouse restaurant.

His blood-alcohol level was 0.27, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08, Officer Downey testified. Sherwood told detectives that he had been drinking “two to three cups” of Paul Masson wine and that he had smoked marijuana earlier in the day.

“I’m a pothead,” Downey read aloud quoting the Sherwood interview.

Now inside the police interrogation room, Sherwood asked if his wife was dead, then demanded a menthol cigarette, and a cheesesteak sandwich, Downey testified.

“You’re going to get all the essentials, but you’re not going to get anything without a cigarette,” Downey read aloud from his transcript.

New Year’s Eve

Sherwood was trying to win back his estranged wife.

John Sherwood joined his mother for dinner at a Chipotle restaurant on Liberia Avenue in Manassas the day after Christmas 2014. It was there Erica Sherwood arrived later and got into an argument with her mother-in-law over a piece of jewelry and slapped her in the face, Sherwood testified.

Erica Sherwood left the restaurant. Later, so did John Sherwood. He went to spend the night at his father’s house. The next morning, he drove the family Cadillac from his dad’s house to his Triangle apartment.

Before he arrived, he was stopped by police, and the car was impounded because the car was not street legal. Erica Sherwood would later pay to have the car released from the impound lot and use it to drive to Sharae Harris’ house.

Following the fight between Erica Sherwood and her mother-in-law, Sherwood said his wife sent him an angry text message accusing him of taking his mother’s side in the argument, Sherwood testified.

To win her back, he texted her and asked if she and their son would meet him at a Baskin Robins to share ice cream. It was the place where the couple had gone on their first date, Sherwood testified.

Erica Sherwood didn’t bring their son to meet him. John Sherwood then suspected his wife of being with another man.

Sherwood said he tried again to meet with his wife and had planned to use the gift card to Logan’s Roadhouse to take her to dinner on New Year’s Eve. He went to Jazz Cuts, a barbershop in Manassas, before the dinner. He received a text message from his wife telling him she had been drinking and would not drive the Cadillac to meet him.

“I really want to be with my wife and son when the ball drops,” Sherwood to the jury. “My marriage depends on it.”

Sherwood then decided to take a bus from Liberia Avenue in Manassas to Dale Boulevard in Dale City. When he got off, he walked to Sharae Harris’ house where his wife was staying. He said he heard music and saw a party happening when he arrived.

This was not the first time John Sherwood had been at Harris’ home.

The murder

Harris and family members were inside the house. So was Erica Sherwood and the couple’s son. While there, Sherwood said he played with his son and then later put him to bed.

Afterward, Sherwood said he took his wife into a back bedroom where the two engaged in a heated argument.

Sharae Harris testified during a preliminary hearing on April 2, 2015, that Sherwood became angry for drinking because he suspected she was pregnant. At the start of the trial on Tuesday, prosecutors and Sherwood’s attorney stipulated that Erica Sherwood was not pregnant when she was killed.

While working in Virginia, Medical Examiner Dr. Mehi Koolae performed an autopsy of Harris’ body following her death. Prosecutors subpoenaed Koolae from his current job in California to have him testify.

Prosecutor Brian Boyle said he knew Sherwood was not pregnant at April 2 preliminary hearing but chose not to discuss that information at that time. The attorneys told Judge Steven Smith they agreed to stipulate she was not pregnant because the prosecution did not ask Koolae about a possible pregnancy while on the stand.

For John Sherwood, the stress of losing a job just before Christmas, and the thought of his wife’s potential affair with another man weighed on him, he told the court.

With the party died down and Sharae Harris now in bed with her young son, Erica Sherwood retired into the bedroom where her son was sleeping. Her husband laid down on a couch in the living room.

Erica Sherwood came back out of the bedroom, walked to the kitchen, and plugged in the cell phone belonging to Harris that she had been using. She went back into the bedroom, and John Sherwood grabbed the phone and reviewed the text messages, he testified.

In addition to the penis photo, which Prosecutor Brian Boyle called a “dick pic,” Sherwood found a photo of his wife smoking a marijuana cigarette. Sherwood assumed it was a response to the man who sent the photo of his anatomy.

Erica Sherwood told her husband the photo was sent to her from a friend of her father, testified John Sherwood. This differs from testimony given by Sharae Harris who said the picture was sent to her.

Sherwood said he then “blanked out” and “couldn’t see anything.” Prosecutors said he grabbed a knife and went after his wife.

Erica Sherwood ran in terror into Harris’ room where she was asleep with her child. Prosecutor Rick Conway said Sherwood was able to close the Harris’ bedroom door behind her, but her husband was able to stab her through the door, piercing her back, and bending the knife.

While Erica Sherwood shook Harris awake screaming for her life. Prosecutors said they found Sharae Harris’ DNA underneath Erica Sherwood’s fingernails, a testament to how scared she was and the amount of force she used to try to stir her friend.

Now with a bent knife, prosecutors said her husband went back to the kitchen, grabbed a new knife. By now, Harris was awake, and she testified that she saw Sherwood walking down a hallway toward her and Erica Sherwood.

John Sherwood then chased his wife and Harris into a bathroom. They tried to close the door, but John Sherwood forced it open knocking Harris into a bathtub and Erica Sherwood to the floor.

Harris testified he began to hit his wife, then stabbed her, and then cut her throat.

Sherwood charged with assaulting his wife seven months before murder 

The first-degree conviction carries with it a possible sentence of life in prison, while involuntary manslaughter carries the potential of 10 years in jail. Sherwood will be sentenced on March 17, 2017.

Prosecutors on Wednesday said John Sherwood had three prior felonies, and two misdemeanor offenses on his record. One was an assault and-and battery charge in a domestic dispute between him and his wife on May 27, 2014 — seven months before he killed her.

In each case he served no time, said Prince William prosecutor Rick Conway.