Trial begins for man charged with fatally shooting woman at Harris Teeter gas pump in Virginia Beach
It was less than two weeks before Christmas in 2021 when Steven Smith and his wife, Annie, pulled up to the gas pumps outside a Virginia Beach grocery store.
The couple had been out shopping and running errands on Dec. 13 in Annie Smith’s beloved two-door, smoky-colored Ford Mustang. They decided to stop for gas at the Harris Teeter off Independence Boulevard before heading home.
Steven Smith, 67, testified Tuesday in Virginia Beach Circuit Court that he was putting his debit card back in his wallet when a masked man got out of a car that had just pulled up to the pump next to his. The man ran over to Smith, pointed a gun to his head and demanded he give him everything he had.
Smith gave the man his wallet and debit card and the man ran off. But moments later, he came back, again demanding Smith give him all of his property.
“He said, ‘Is that everything that you’ve got,’” Smith testified. “I said, ‘Yes, you’ve got it all. You’ve got it all. There’s nothing else.”
Next, another man from the car got out, approached Smith and made the same demands. The man then climbed into the driver’s side of the Mustang and ordered Annie Smith to hand over all she had, Smith testified. The next thing Smith heard was three gunshots. Within minutes, his wife would be pronounced dead, having been shot three times in the chest.
Smith’s testimony came on the first day of trial for Darrius White, 24, who is charged with killing Annie Smith, 65, as she sat in the passenger seat of her car. White’s 31-year-old brother, Michael, also is charged in the case but isn’t scheduled to go to trial until June.
Darrius White is charged with aggravated murder, robbery and multiple handgun violations. If convicted of the aggravated murder charge, he must be sentenced to life in prison without parole under Virginia law. His trial is expected to last about four days.
During opening statements and Steven Smith’s testimony, prosecutors played surveillance footage from the gas pumps that captured the incident. White’s defense lawyer, Kristin Paulding, didn’t deny that her client shot Annie Smith that day.
The question for the jury to decide is why he shot her, Paulding said.
Annie Smith had a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun in the car with her. She kept it in a holster mounted to the passenger side of the car’s center console with a baseball cap draped over it, Stephen Smith testified. The firearm was no longer there when Steven Smith looked for it after the shooting, and was recovered by police sometime later.
Paulding suggested during her opening statement that Annie Smith was holding the gun when White shot her.
“Something happened in that moment that caused her to die,” Paulding told the jurors. “That wasn’t Darrius’ intention.”
The events leading up to the shooting began about 4 p.m. that day, when Darrius White and Michael White stole a gold Lexus in Chesapeake, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Brandon Emery told jurors. The owner had left it running outside a house near where the White brothers lived with their grandmother.
After attempting to rob a woman at a 7-Eleven, the two drove to the gas pumps at Harris Teeter and robbed the Smiths, Emery said.
The owner of the Lexus that was stolen went looking for it afterward and saw the White brothers sitting in it at a stop light about two hours after the shooting, the prosecutor said. The owner shouted at them that it was his car and they got out and left it there.
The Lexus owner reported the theft to police and investigators soon realized it was the same car used in the shooting, Emery said. Fingerprints for both brothers were found in the car and they were arrested several days later. Both men gave statements to detectives in which they admitted to participating in the robbery and shooting, he said.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
