Officials said the evidence linked Hagen Roberts to the fatal stabbing of Cynthia Capps inside the home where he rented a room.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A jury conviction and maximum sentence in the killing of Cynthia Capps rested on a tightly assembled forensic case, Virginia Beach officials said, one that linked tenant Hagen Lawrence Roberts to blood evidence, a broken folding knife and the toolbox where Capps’ body was found.
The case drew public attention because of its brutality and because prosecutors said the physical evidence told a consistent story even though officials did not publicly describe a motive. Roberts, 41, was convicted on Nov. 20, 2025, of first-degree murder and stabbing in the commission of a felony. On Feb. 25, 2026, Judge Stephen C. Mahan sentenced him to life in prison plus five years in the death of Capps, 63, who authorities said was stabbed more than 90 times at the Green Cedar Lane home where Roberts rented a room.
Police were called to the residence on Oct. 8, 2020, after Capps’ husband said he had taken a shower, came out and could not find her. While searching the house, he saw a single drop of blood on the kitchen floor and called 911, prosecutors said. Officers responded and began checking the property for Capps and for evidence of foul play. They soon learned Roberts was living in the home as a renter. His bedroom door was locked. When officers forced it open, they found him lying on the bed. Authorities said he appeared wet from a recent shower and had a cut on his right hand wrapped in a black bandana. Officers then expanded the search and found blood stains in the backyard. Not long after that, they discovered Capps dead inside a toolbox, with visible trauma to her head and face.
The state’s case was built around what investigators recovered next. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner concluded that Capps had been stabbed more than 90 times in the head, face and neck. During the postmortem examination, a metal shard that appeared to be the tip of a knife was removed from her skull. Investigators also found a black folding knife with a broken tip covered in dried blood in Roberts’ room. The Department of Forensic Science later determined that the metal fragment was a direct match to that knife, according to the city’s releases. Police recovered blood-covered clothes from an outside trash can and documented blood stains throughout the home. DNA testing found genetic material from both Capps and Roberts on the folding knife, on the discarded clothing and in blood evidence from the house, officials said. Together, those findings gave prosecutors a chain of evidence that stretched from the bedroom to the body and from the body back to the weapon.
The legal path took years. Roberts went to trial in November 2025, more than five years after the killing. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorneys Thomas J. Wright and Gordon C. Ufkes presented the case for the prosecution. Their evidence, as summarized later by the city, focused almost entirely on the physical record rather than public statements about motive or prior conflict. Commonwealth’s Attorney Colin D. Stolle announced the guilty verdict after the three-day trial and later announced the sentence. The judge imposed the maximum punishment available under the convictions, the city said. Separate reporting after the sentencing hearing said Roberts maintained his innocence, despite the verdict and the sentence.
That posture shaped the meaning of the case. There was no public confession in the city’s summaries and no official account of why Capps was attacked. Instead, the prosecution relied on the kind of evidence that can be measured and compared: blood stains, DNA profiles, the broken tip of a knife and the condition of the suspect when officers opened the locked bedroom door. In that way, the case became less about a disputed narrative and more about whether the physical evidence formed a complete picture. Prosecutors said it did. The jury agreed, and the sentence that followed signaled the court’s view of the severity of both the killing and the concealment of the body.
The death of Cynthia Capps was also a personal loss that remained visible in the background of the court proceedings. Her obituary remembered her as a dedicated mother and wife and said she was deeply loved. Those simple words offered a different register from the court’s language about murder, forensic testing and felony stabbing. There is no further hearing date listed in the city’s public releases, and no additional suspects were identified there. The case now stands in public record as a homicide solved through forensic work, a jury verdict and a sentence that effectively ensures Roberts will spend the rest of his life in prison unless a future court changes that outcome.
Author note: Last updated March 25, 2026.