Man Gets Maximum Penalty In Manassas Body Burning Case

A man who carried his friend's body from a Manassas hotel room to a nearby church parking lot where he set it on fire — twice — was sentenced to five years in prison, the maximum penalty allowed under the law.

Richard Sword pleaded guilty to concealment of a corpse in July in the case of Antonio Bailey whose burned body was found in a parking lot in Old Town Manassas in October.

Sword and his brother Gerry Lee were originally charged with murder in the case, but because of Richard Sword's actions no one really knows what happened in the hotel room the night of Bailey's death, said Brian Boyle, the assistant Commonwealth's attorney who prosecuted the case.

An autopsy revealed Bailey died of a lethal mixture of the antidepressant Prozac, alcohol and what prosecutors call a "super therapeutic level" of Benadryl. The autopsy also revealed he was dead before the burning. As a result the murder charges were dropped.

The remaining charges in the indictment are correct, because Bailey's body was moved and burned-which shows a malicious intent by Richard Sword to conceal the circumstances of his death, Boyle told the court Thursday at the sentencing hearing.

"He did his job well," Boyle said of Richard Sword.  Now Bailey's family left with nothing but questions and uncertainties about what led to his death, Boyle added. 
The three men were reportedly in Room 43 at the Olde Towne Inn partying together before Bailey's death.

Video footage from the hotel showed the Sword brothers carrying Bailey's body to a van owned by Richard Sword.

Sobs could be heard from Bailey's sister Veronica, while the prosecution played the video for the court during Thursday's hearing.

Bailey's body was driven across the street to the parking lot and set on fire around 3:18 a.m. Four minutes later, the fire went out and Richard Sword went back across the street and set the body on fire a second time, the video shows.

"They burned him like trash—like he was nothing," Veronica Bailey said in her testimony before the sentencing.

Her brother's death and the subsequent criminal case has taken a toll on the whole family, especially her mother, Veronica Bailey told the court.

She said she spoke by phone to Richard Sword right before her brother's death because she sensed something was wrong.

"He promised me that he would take care of my brother and he didn't," she said before breaking into sobs.

Richard Sword's lawyer Ronald Fahy said his client was intoxicated at the time of the crime.

Boyle told Prince William Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Kendrick that Richard Sword has an extensive criminal history and started doing illegal drugs when he was 7.

Gerry Sword also entered a guilty plea in the case and will be sentenced later.