The couple robbed the establishment and murdered four people: the bar's owner, Lam Van Son; two employees, Wendell G. Parish Jr. and Karen Sue Rounds; and a patron, Abdelaziz Gren.
[3] Prior to the slayings, Denise Rayne Holsinger, one of the robbers responsible, was formerly employed as a waitress at the bar in question.
[4][5][6] On the night of June 30, 1994, the date of Clagett's 33rd birthday, the couple carried out their plan, barging into the bar while armed with a gun.
The four victims — 42-year-old bar owner Lam Van Son, 31-year-old newly hired waitress Karen Sue Rounds, 32-year-old cook Wendel G. "J.R." Parrish Jr., and 35-year-old patron Abdelaziz "Aziz" Gren — died as a result of the shooting.
[4] Shortly after the murders, Richard T. Reed, a regular patron, arrived at around midnight, and noticed that the doors were locked even though the bar was supposed to close at 2am.
[7][8] Like Lam, Abdelaziz Gren (1959 – June 30, 1994), who was born in Morocco, immigrated to the U.S. for a better life, and first settled in Virginia Beach since 1982.
Gren, who completed his college education in Morocco, spoke fluent Arabic, French and English and planned to build his own company that mainly took charge of attracting Moroccan and French businesses to the U.S. Gren, however, died before the U.S. government approved papers for him to begin his business venture.
Rounds, who started working at the bar a month before her murder, returned to college and planned to pursue a new career related to computers, after she resigned from her previous job as a nurse at a Maryview Medical Center clinic in Churchland.
[7] Wendel Parrish Jr. (August 7, 1961 – June 30, 1994) was the cook and handyman working at the bar when the murder spree occurred.
[7] A day after the bar murders, Michael Clagett was arrested for public intoxication, after he was caught sleeping in the bushes outside an apartment building.
[12][13] During his childhood, Clagett was said to be the polar opposite of his older brother Jim, and often grew up under his shadow; Jim was outgoing, hard-working and active in scout-related activities and clubs, while Clagett was lazy, disruptive and began picking up negative habits at a young age.
During his time in the navy, Clagett was court-martialed twice and even received two captain's masts for disciplinary issues, which led to a bad-conduct discharge on December 11, 1984.
In 1986, Clagett's three-year suspended sentence was revoked after he was found in possession of $18,000 worth of stolen property, including a car he drove from Virginia to Florida.
[12] In April 1995, Clagett, who originally expressed his intention to plead guilty, informed the courts that he would stand trial.
Under Virginia state law, Clagett faced the death penalty or life imprisonment for the capital charges of murder preferred against him.
[4][20][21] On October 23, 1995, Clagett was officially sentenced to death by Judge Edward W. Hanson Jr. during a formal court hearing.
[28] Reportedly, the family members of the victims were unsatisfied with the sentence of life and some, including Abdelaziz Gren's sister Khadija Gren; Wendell Parish Jr.'s mother Carolyn Cussins; Lam Van Son's widow Lanna Son and Karen Rounds's husband Kevin Rounds, said that Holsinger deserved the death penalty like Clagett.
The prosecution was similarly dissatisfied with the mitigating evidence of Holsinger, calling her out for making excuses to support her behaviour behind the murders, which Commonwealth's Attorney Robert J. Humphreys described as "the most violent event that has occurred in the history of our young city".
[23] On June 7, 1996, the Supreme Court of Virginia rejected Michael Clagett's appeal against his four death sentences for the four charges of capital murder, with respect to each of his victims.
[4] After exhausting his appeals, on that same year itself, Clagett's death warrant was finalized and his execution was scheduled to take place on July 6, 2000.
During the final week leading up to his execution, Clagett appealed for the final time to the U.S. Supreme Court, stating that the jurors were not told that he would be ineligible for parole if they sentenced him to life in prison, which raised doubts over the validity of his sentencing, and claimed that his confession was made under the effects of alcohol and it should be thrown out.
Clagett, who chose to be executed by electrocution instead of the usual method of lethal injection, expressed his intention to not appeal for clemency from then Governor Jim Gilmore.
[32][33] On July 6, 2000, 39-year-old Michael David Clagett was put to death by the electric chair at the Greensville Correctional Center.
[38] In the aftermath of Michael Clagett's execution, Denise Holsinger remains in the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women serving her life sentence as of 2025.
[40][41] Her plea was denied by Circuit Judge H. Thomas Padrick Jr., who found that she was not entitled to having a share of her ex-husband's pension, stating that Holsinger's ex-husband should keep the whole sum on account of his sole responsibility to raise their three children and he noted that Holsinger's conviction for murder was the catalyst behind the end of her marriage.