Danville teen sentenced for mother’s death

A Danville teenager received a 50-year prison sentence Monday for ferociously stabbing his mother 19 times — seven times in the head — during a brutal 2008 killing.
Travis Coleman Lewis, 19, stabbed his mother hard enough to bend his butcher’s knife, according to a news release from the Danville Commonweath’s Attorney Office.
Judge David Melesco sentenced Lewis to a Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice facility until his 21st birthday. His 50-year sentence will begin after his release from the juvenile justice facility.
“I am compelled to go above the guidelines because the case is so mind numbing,” Melesco said. “The horror of the case stuns me.”
The sentencing guidelines called for a prison term from 22 years and 11 months to 38 years and three months.
Lewis’ lack of a motive and the killing’s timing disturbed him, Melesco said. Lewis was doing well in school and looking forward to the birth of his brother, who was terminated after Lewis’ mother died.
“And then this out of the clear blue sky,” Melesco said.
Lewis woke up in a rage one night in August 2008, according to testimony. He grabbed a knife from the kitchen, woke his mother, chased her out of their trailer and stabbed her to death in the front yard.
He cut himself and cleaned the knife. Lewis maintained for more than 10 months that a black man broke into their trailer, attacked him and killed his mother, Brenda Marie Lewis. He confessed in June and pleaded guilty in October.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Bill Fuller said Lewis’ actions were premeditated and deliberate. Fuller said Lewis tried to conceal his crime.
“(His mother) was absolutely mutilated in an overdone murder,” Fuller said. “Then he concocted his story.”
Defense attorney Gregory Casker said the case has only one question: Why?
“Travis doesn’t have an answer,” Casker said. “He did this unthinkable act to his mother. To this day, he doesn’t know why he did it.”
Casker said his client did not know what he was doing and had mental health problems throughout his childhood. Lewis heard voices and beat himself, Casker said. A treatment provider who last saw Lewis in 2001 testified Lewis was unable to focus, impulsive and talked to himself as if he were talking with another person.
Casker asked the judge to send Lewis somewhere he could receive mental health treatment, which would prepare Lewis for the remainder of his sentence in the Department of Corrections. The state’s juvenile justice facilities offer that type of treatment.
“He took a life,” Casker said. “We ask you not to take his entire life.”
Lewis nodded after Casker said he deserves prison time and spoke briefly before the judge gave his sentence.
He said he loved his mother.
“I know ya’ll may never forgive me,” he told his family, who were seated in the courtroom. “I love ya’ll so much. And I’m so sorry.”