Man charged in murder of wife’s boyfriend

Injured woman remains in critical condition

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

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The gunfire outside Virasith’s home on Liberty Street in Lexington Park left her in critical condition this week at a hospital; a former jail inmate residing with her dead; and her estranged husband in custody on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Two of the pistol rounds allegedly fired by 40-year-old Koummane Virasith shortly before midnight struck and killed Thomas John Saunders, identified in court papers filed by police as Melissa Virasith’s boyfriend.

On Monday, Koummane Virasith, who lived in a trailer park less than a mile from his wife’s neighborhood, told St. Mary’s District Judge John F. Slade III that he is a lifelong county resident.

The judge ordered that Virasith remain jailed without bond, saying ‘‘The court’s concerned about the public’s safety.”

Virasith was among the people calling 911 after the gunfire, St. Mary’s detectives report, and court papers state law officers found him Thursday night sitting near the bullet-riddled pair.

‘‘He confessed to using a handgun to shoot both victims,” detective William Ray wrote in charging papers, and Virasith still had the gun.

Earlier that night, Virasith argued with Saunders over the telephone, court papers state, and Virasith went to the neighborhood and met his wife and Saunders outside their apartment. Charging papers state that the two men continued arguing, until Virasith brandished the gun and began shooting.

A helicopter crew flew Saunders, 38, to the Prince George’s Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead. Two of the pistol rounds also struck Melissa Virasith, and detectives report that the 40-year-old woman likewise was flown to the hospital, where she remained Tuesday in its critical care ward.

Koummane Virasith had been at the apartment early last month, court papers state, allegedly slashing his wife’s car tires and resuming activity that had prompted her to seek help from judicial authorities back in 2003 and again early last year.

When the couple lived together five years ago in the Patuxent Park neighborhood, Melissa Virasith filed a domestic-violence petition complaining that her husband was ‘‘keeping me awake at night, trying to force himself on me,” that he had followed a car carrying her and their three sons and that he threw a rolling pin through a television earlier that year because she was on the phone. She also alleged in the 2003 petition that her husband had punched her in the face in 1999, giving her a bloody lip.

Slade issued a six-month protective order in response to the petition, ordering Koummane Virasith not to abuse or harass his wife and barring him from the residence except when following a schedule for him to have the three children in his custody.

Melissa Virasith filed another petition in March of last year stating she had left the Patuxent Park residence because her husband ‘‘would wake me up in the early mornings to argue and not let me sleep,” that he had recently grabbed her from behind and was constantly calling her and going to her new home. She alleged in the petition that he pushed her onto a couch and got on top of her, and that he had thrown the children against furniture and the oldest one on the floor. The couple, married 13 years earlier, had been separated then for about six weeks.

A court commissioner ordered that Koummane Virasith have no contact with his wife and stay away from her residence, but Slade denied the petition for a protective order on grounds that there was no statutory basis for relief.

By June of last year, Melissa Virasith was writing to a judge in circuit court with an offer of a job for Saunders and a place for him to live.

Saunders pleaded guilty in 1999 to committing a third-degree sexual offense the preceding year with a 14-year-old girl, who court papers state was lured into Saunders’ home in California and his bed. Saunders was sentenced to serve five years in prison.

After his release, Saunders admitted in 2006 to violating his probation by not reporting two misdemeanor assault and drug charges, and he was ordered to serve 18 months in jail with work-release privileges.

Melissa Virasith wrote to Circuit Judge Michael J. Stamm last summer that Saunders was on his way to becoming a manager at a restaurant where she worked as its general manager.

‘‘If Thomas could come back to work, I feel he would get the chance to put his life together and do the right thing,” she wrote. ‘‘When Thomas gets released, he will be renting a room from me.”

Melissa Virasith secured a child-support payment schedule last fall by filing a civil action against her husband.

When Koummane Virasith was questioned last month about the damages to his wife’s car, charging papers allege he admitted that he acted out of anger, and out of concern for his children’s safety if the man living with his wife was a sex offender. ‘‘I further advised him that this type of behavior would not help him get custody of his kids,” St. Mary’s sheriff’s deputy Jean Vezzosi wrote in an application resulting in a summons charging him with property destruction.