WASHINGTON - A jury of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia has found Steven Holman, a 48-year-old man from Southeast Washington, D.C., guilty of the murder of his wife in February 2008, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced today.

On November 21, 2008, after deliberating for approximately four hours, the jury found the defendant guilty of Second Degree Murder while Armed. At sentencing, the defendant faces a possible penalty of up to 27 years of incarceration under the Superior Court Voluntary Sentencing Guidelines. Sentencing is scheduled for January 27, 2009, before the Honorable Herbert B. Dixon, Jr.

The government's evidence at trial described an argument between the couple that started when the victim, Valerie Ballentine, told the defendant to move out of the apartment that the two had shared with Ms. Ballentine's grandmother. The defendant confronted his wife with a knife, then stabbed her in the back. Ms. Ballentine ran into her grandmother's bedroom, and fell or was pushed on top of her 90-year-old grandmother, who was sitting on the bed. According to the government's evidence, while the decedent was laying on top of her grandmother, the defendant continued his assault on Ms. Ballentine, stabbing her three times in the forehead. Though the grandmother died of unrelated health issues prior to the commencement of the trial, the jury heard her testimony via a previously videotaped deposition in which she described the experience of having her granddaughter die in her arms.

In announcing the verdict, U.S. Attorney Taylor praised the work of Metropolitan Police Department Detectives George Blackwell, Lee Littlejohn, Jed Worrell, Jacqueline Middleton and Dean Combee as well as that of Mobile Crime Technicians J. D. Smith and Carmen Pagen. He also thanked Assistant Medical Examiner Ana Rubio of the Maryland Medical Examiner's Office for her assistance in the case. Finally, he acknowledged the efforts of former Assistant U.S. Attorney June Jeffries, who investigated and indicted the case, and Assistant U. S. Attorney Tom Gillice, who prosecuted it at trial.