Through their tears outside the courthouse, where her killer pleaded guilty to her murder, the family of Regina Redman remembered their loved one -- a substitute teacher and mother to a teenage boy.
"She had the biggest heart," said Robin Chase, Redman's aunt.
Redman's death was a tragic chain of events that shocked the Loudoun County community. Her killer -- who already had a protective order against him and was wearing a GPS monitor at the time she was killed -- pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other crimes on Thursday.
It was a long-awaited trial. The case was originally set to go to court last November but was delayed due to an ethical conflict of interest.
Peter Lollobrigido was first arrested in July 2021 for strangling and violently beating Redman, his estranged wife.
Despite that arrest, Lollobrigido was released on bond, and given that GPS monitor.
Redman got a protective order against Lollobrigido, but two months later, he got into her apartment and attacked her with a hammer.
He later told police that he gave her a kiss, looked her square in the eyes, told her he loved her and began striking her with the hammer.
Lollobrigido, 52, pleaded guilty to all seven charges against him in both attacks.
In exchange, his attorney and prosecutors agreed on a 42-year prison term.
"The primary consideration for us was, first and foremost, community safety," Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney for Loudoun County Nicole Wittman said. "This sentence achieves that, but it also balances the need of this family after three years for this case to end. They don't have to go to court and hear the gruesome details, they don't have to hear autopsy reports and they get to have closure."
Wittman calls Redman's death "completely preventable."
The case is also one that political observers believe contributed to the defeat of the former commonwealth's attorney and the election of Bob Anderson in November.
Wittman told News4 the new administration's policy is to seek no bond in all domestic violence cases involving alleged strangulation.
Research shows that women in abusive relationships who are non-fatally strangled by their partners are far more likely to experience deadly violence in the future. The National Institutes of Health recommended prosecuting strangulation as a more serious crime than other assault and battery charges in a 2008 study.
"That person never would have been let out on bond," Wittman said. "That's a focus of this administration is to make sure that these types of events never occur in our community."
Redman's family will be back at the courthouse in Loudoun County on Oct. 24 for Lollobrigido's final sentencing. That's when they will get to tell the judge about the devastating impact that Redman's murder has had on their lives.
News4 asked the defense attorney why his client decided to plead guilty, but the attorney declined to comment.
