Defiant Va. gang leader gets life term: "One-time federal death row prisoner Richard Thomas Stitt was sentenced to life in prison without parole Tuesday.
Stitt, one of Portsmouth's more notorious gang leaders who had the nicknames 'Death' and 'Tom-Tom,' remained defiant, proclaiming his innocence and telling the judge he was framed.
'I had nothing to do with these murders,' Stitt told U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson. 'I never had nobody killed or shot.'
He said if a number of co-defendants hadn't cut deals with the government to testify against him, 'the truth would have come out.'
Stitt, now 37, ran a violent drug gang in Portsmouth for nearly a decade before his arrest in the late 1990s. He was convicted in 1998 and received three death sentences - one for each of three killings he ordered.
Wayne A. Griffin Sr. testified Tuesday that his family remains impacted by the 1993 murder of his brother, James Michael Griffin Jr. Stitt was convicted of ordering the killing.
'It's like a hole in your heart,' Griffin said. 'It's something missing.'"