Richard C. Crowder (Henrico County Sheriff’s Office) and authorities responding to the home where he killed his wife and stepdaughter (WTVR screenshot)
A 60-year-old former police officer in Virginia will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing his wife and stepdaughter, gunning both down in cold blood two years ago. A Henrico County Circuit Court judge on Friday ordered Richard C. Crowder to serve 100 years in a state correctional facility for the 2022 slayings of 53-year-old Diane Crowder and 35-year-old Carrie Szaksz, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Richard Crowder pleaded guilty in February to two counts of first-degree murder in the women’s fatal shootings. The judge sentenced Crowder to 50-year sentences for each killing, to be served consecutively, meaning one after the other.
Richard Crowder also entered Alford pleas on two counts of attempted aggravated murder of a law enforcement officer for firing at the former colleagues who responded to the scene during an hourslong standoff. He was sentenced to an additional 50 years on those charges, bringing his total sentence to 150 years.
An Alford plea is functionally equivalent to a guilty plea in that it results in a conviction, but it allows a defendant to maintain their claim of innocence while conceding that the state has sufficient evidence to convict them at trial.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, the shooting took place in July 2022 as Diane Crowder was moving out of the home she shared with Richard Crowder in the 7600 block of Phillips Wood Drive, about 11 miles southeast of Richmond, Virginia. Diane Crowder and her daughter were outside the home while the team of movers she had hired were in the house when Richard Crowder showed up with a handgun.
“Diane Crowder was in the process of leaving her husband, the defendant, and moving out of their home. She had employed the help of her family, to include her daughter, Carrie Szaksz,” Henrico County Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor previously said about the case. “During the move, with employees of the moving company upstairs and other family members outside the home, Richard Crowder opened fire on the two women, striking them each numerous times and killing them.”
During Friday’s sentencing hearing, the presiding judge Crowder’s case was “one that this court will never forget,” adding that the former Henrico County Police Officer betrayed oaths to protect his community and his wife, according to a report from Bluefield, West Virginia NBC and CW affiliate WVVA.
The movers told investigators that even before the shooting, the scene was tense and they had been warned that the male resident of the home was “drunk and agitated,” Richmond CBS affiliate WTVR reported. One of the movers told the station that he could tell his client Diane Crowder and her husband Richard Crowder had been arguing.
The movers were taking care of the final two pieces in the home when he heard screaming, yelling, cursing, then gunshots and silence.
“I started panicking, scared, not knowing if he was going to go upstairs,” he told WTVR. “I knew I had to get out of there.”
While one mover reportedly locked the door of that upstairs room, the other opened a window and busted out the screen. They leaped from that room on the second floor, he said. According to the station, one of them was injured hitting an air conditioning unit on the way down, and they ran through the woods and called authorities, continuing to hear gunshots.
Crowder then barricaded himself in the home and had a nine-hour standoff with police during which he fired multiple shots at officers.
“I know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t jump because the standoff was nine hours,” the mover said. “I know he walked around the house plenty of times. I know he remembered we were in there.”
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