Nov. 25--NORFOLK -- Austin and Melanie King shared a simple, routine life.
They had been married for 31 years. Every Saturday, Austin would go for a bike ride, and upon his return the couple would grab lunch at Famous Uncle Al's Hot Dogs in Virginia Beach.
Austin, 56, worked as a traveling tool salesman in Norfolk, the same job he'd had for 24 years. He was easygoing -- if a mechanic needed a tool but didn't have the money, he'd take payment later. While he made his daily stops at auto shops, Melanie stayed home and handled the books. On occasion, she would head to Sam's Club to replenish the supply of lollipops that Austin enjoyed handing out to his customers.
Austin was "the kind of man who made you better, just by being around you," Melanie said. "You wanted to do things a certain way, just so that you could be like him."
Every morning Austin would heat water for his wife's tea, and every night she'd make his lunch. He would leave the house weekdays at 7:30 a.m. and would return around 4:30 p.m.
But one afternoon in late March, the routine was broken.
Five o'clock came, and there was no sign of Austin. His wife called his phone. No answer. She feared he'd had a heart attack and collapsed in his truck.
Melanie drove to several of his stops but came up empty. She reported him missing to police about 7:30 that night.
At 4:30 the following morning, detectives from York County showed up at her door. Her husband's truck had been found ablaze on an exit ramp, and a body was inside, they told her. They said they would need his dental records.
Hours later, they charged two auto shop workers in the murder of Austin King. In a weeklong trial that ended Tuesday in Norfolk, the defendants gave conflicting tales on how the killing unfolded.
"Most crime, in the final analysis, doesn't make sense," Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Phil Evans told the jury Monday. "Was this a brilliant crime? No. Did it happen? Yes."
Hassan Harvey, now 35, was a hot rod mechanic and former computer analyst who was raised in New York and moved to Virginia Beach in 1989. A high school dropout, he was in and out of court for failure to pay child support. He ran his shop without a business license.
On March 21, Harvey and his business partner, Kasey Rubio, planned to rob Austin King, Rubio told the jury.
Rubio, whose father was in the Navy, was born in Nebraska. She had lived in Virginia, New Mexico, Washington state, Florida, Japan and Hawaii.
She moved to Hampton Roads with her parents in 2011 after graduating from high school.
While looking for a good mechanic, she stumbled upon Harvey's shop, Top Dead Center, in an industrial park on Nevada Avenue.
Eventually, she agreed to work there, keeping the shop's finances and helping work on cars. Rubio said she soon realized that Harvey was having financial trouble. He owed more than $1,000 to Austin King for tools he had purchased.
After parting ways with her roommate, Rubio, then 19, started living in the shop, sleeping in her Honda inside the bay. She took out a $5,600 loan to help Harvey, she said.
Rubio gave the jury this account of how Austin King was killed:
Harvey told her he planned to steal King's tools. He wanted her to distract King.
Harvey also suggested that he could hit King on the head to buy them more time. Then they would leave the truck in a different location and King would wake up, she told police.
"Hassan said he could knock him out and he would be OK. He was never supposed to be killed," Rubio said.
Harvey carried a hammer as he went outside to greet King as he pulled up in his truck. They both got on the truck, which had an aisle with tools on each side and a computer station where King processed sales. Harvey tried to make a $300 transaction, but his card was declined. Rubio then looked at Harvey and shook her head, trying to communicate that she didn't want to go through with the plan.
King handed a lollipop to Rubio.
"I went to walk off the truck, and that's when he hit him," she testified, nearly hysterical. "I heard it."
She turned toward Harvey, crying and shaking. Harvey told her to calm down.
Harvey backed the truck into his shop, and they zip-tied King's hands and feet. Rubio said she was afraid for her life. King was still alive and unconscious when they tied him up.
Harvey took tools off the truck. He sprayed white paint over King's name and number on the truck. Rubio said she used cleaner to wipe blood from the truck's steps.
Harvey drove the truck and Rubio followed in her Honda toward Richmond that night. After finding a dark spot, Harvey set the truck on fire with gasoline. He got in Rubio's car and they drove to a Taco Bell and then to a Red Roof Inn in Chesapeake.
Harvey gave a different account. He told police that Rubio and her ex-boyfriend were in the back of the truck with King when the tool salesman was hit.
On the witness stand, he said that he had lied about the ex-boyfriend being at the scene.
He testified that he and Rubio never discussed any plan to rob King.
He said he was sitting in the driver's seat of King's truck, reading a catalog, and Rubio was in the back of the truck with King when he heard a thump. When he saw what had happened, he said, he decided to help her cover up the crime.
After backing the truck into the shop and closing the bay door, Harvey sat outside for more than two hours, watching racing videos on his phone while Rubio was inside. Then they went to eat Mongolian barbecue and returned. Rubio told him she could burn the truck but needed his help, he said.
Rubio placed the hammer on a bench in the shop. Rubio poured gasoline in the truck before they left the shop. He drove the truck until he couldn't stand smelling the fumes anymore, he said.
He lit the truck on fire and then left with Rubio for the Red Roof Inn.
On the evening Austin King disappeared, his daughter, Katelyn King, looked in the computer program that recorded her father's transactions and found a record of an unsuccessful charge for $300 to a card listed under "Harvey, Hassan." Her mother, Melanie, would later give the information to York County detectives.
Katelyn, 24, and her mother began calling customers along Austin's route to see whether they had seen him. Customers who were on the route after the Harvey stop said Austin had not shown up. Relatives and friends formed search teams and drove around all night looking for Austin's 18-foot tool truck.
Detectives began looking for Harvey the night of the killing, as soon as they talked to Melanie.
York County investigators, acting on a hunch based on records in a database, checked the Red Roof Inn because Harvey had stayed there before. In his empty room, they found Taco Bell wrappers and two empty bottles of sake.
When Rubio and Harvey drove back to his shop early the next day, the place was swarming with Norfolk and York County detectives, who arrested them.
Harvey had $895 in cash; Rubio, $239. On the floor near Harvey in the passenger seat of Rubio's Honda were matches and latex gloves. A bag in the trunk contained Rubio's bloodstained jeans. A gas canister sat behind the driver's seat.
Rubio cooperated with detectives, showing them dozens of tools in the shop that had been removed from King's truck. King's wallet was in a drawer of Harvey's tool bench, with the credit cards taken out. The hammer used to kill him was sitting on a workbench in the shop.
King was hit at least three times in the head and died of blunt-force trauma, according to the medical examiner.
Rubio pleaded guilty Nov. 1 to first-degree murder, grand larceny, conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit arson. A charge of robbery was dropped after she agreed to testify against Harvey.
On Tuesday, the jury convicted Harvey of first-degree murder, grand larceny, conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to commit arson and robbery.
Harvey's attorney, B. Thomas Reed, told jurors they could consider a sentence of less than life in prison if they believed Harvey was less culpable than Rubio.
The jury recommended he serve two life terms plus 40 years. Harvey and Rubio are to be sentenced early next year.
Melanie King said the rest of her life seems like "a big, dark hole."
"One day, we had a wonderful life," she told jurors. "We had a simple life. It wasn't exciting... but we thoroughly enjoyed it."
Patrick Wilson, 757-222-3893, [email protected]
Copyright 2013 - The Virginian-Pilot
