NORFOLK — In the fall of 2020, things were not going well for Shirley and Bobby Davis.
Bobby Davis’s Alzheimer’s disease and dementia was so severe he often didn’t recognize his wife of more than 50 years. Sometimes he became convinced someone was trying to kill him, Shirley Davis testified Tuesday.
Neither Shirley nor Bobby was able to drive. Their great niece, Amanda Newins, and her husband, Brandon Newins, stepped in to help, regularly dropping off groceries and meals, taking them to appointments, and assisting with all their other needs, Shirley Davis said.
After a while, Newins told the Davises it was getting too difficult to go back and forth between her home in Chesapeake and the Davises’ home in Virginia Beach, and persuaded the couple to move in with her, Shirley Davis testified.
Shortly after they moved in, Newins got the Davises to sign all kinds of paperwork, Shirley Davis said. First, there were new wills that gave Newins ownership of the couple’s home when they died, she said. There also was power of attorney forms that gave Newins control over their financial accounts. Lastly, there was a deed of gift that gave Newins immediate ownership of the house on Kempsville Road that the Davises had owned for 48 years.
Shirley Davis’ testimony came on the first day of Newins’ trial in Norfolk Circuit Court.
Newins, 31, an attorney and former prosecutor elected to Chesapeake City Council last year, is charged with a single count of financially exploiting a vulnerable adult. The crime is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The trial is in Norfolk because Newins requested a change of venue.
Newins’ attorney, Kristin Paulding, told jurors in opening statements that Newins was very close to her great aunt and uncle and only had their best interests in mind.
Newins and her husband, both of whom worked full time, went out of their way to help the couple, and were working to fix up the Davises’ home so all of them could move there. Newins also told them that if they deeded the house to her, it would reduce their assets and help them qualify for financial assistance for Bobby Davis’ medical care, Paulding said.
Shirley Davis was one of four witnesses called to testify Tuesday. Special prosecutor William M. Braxton, a senior assistant commonwealth’s attorney from Roanoke County chosen to handle the case, told Circuit Judge Charles E. Poston he only has one more witness — a neurologist who treated Bobby Davis for his Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
It’s not yet known if Newins will testify, but she was named as a potential witness in court documents.
Bobby Davis died in March 2021, about a month after signing the deed gifting his home to Newins. Shirley Davis, now 83, struggled frequently with her hearing and memory during her testimony Tuesday.
She told jurors that she and her husband had no children of their own and that they helped raise Newins because Newins’ mother was a single mom who worked full time.
Davis said she believed she and her husband had no choice but to move in with Newins in the fall of 2020. She also said Newins convinced her that the couple wouldn’t be able to afford to put Bobby Davis in a nursing home, or get some other kind of care, unless they reduced their assets by deeding their house to Newins.
“I trusted her so I signed it,” Davis said.
When Bobby Davis was admitted into a hospital shortly before he died, Newins told Davis she’d have to move out, Davis testified. Davis then went to live with Newins’ mother, whom Newins has always had strained relationship with, and continues to live with her, she said.
Among the other witnesses who testified Tuesday was Eileen Ferrara, a paralegal at Pender & Coward, the law firm where Newins previously worked.
Ferrara testified that in February 2021 she notarized the deed gifting Newins the Davises’ home even though she didn’t witness the Davises signing the document, which was illegal. She said Newins asked her to do it without the couple present and she agreed.
“It was in the midst of COVID,” Ferrara testified. “I thought I was making a concession due to the circumstances that were going on in the community with the virus. I myself was very afraid.”
Ferrara said Newins told her that “her uncle had had a rough night” and that he and her great aunt weren’t willing to come in because of COVID. She testified she knew it was wrong to notarize the document and that she could have refused, but chose to do it anyway.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
