How a Single Drop of Blood Led Virginia Beach Police to the Most Gruesome Discovery in a Toolbox

It was a single, crimson bead—no larger than a pinhead—resting on the floor of a quiet Virginia Beach kitchen. For many, a drop of blood is typically left after a nicked finger or a kitchen mishap. But in 2020, to a husband who couldn’t find his wife in their home, that small piece of evidence unraveled a nightmare hidden in plain sight.

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Virginia Beach police officers responded to Cynthia Capps’ Cedar Lane residence on October 8, 2020, after her husband found a “single drop of blood on their kitchen floor,” WSFA 12 reported. He called 911 to report that he couldn’t find her after taking a shower, and upon their arrival, they breached the bedroom door of Hagen Lawrence Roberts, who was renting a room during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roberts, 41, was seemingly “wet from recently taking a shower” and wearing a black bandana covering “a cut on his right hand,” according to authorities. Additional searching led police to bloodstained clothes in a trash can and more blood; this time, the blood stains found in the backyard of the couple’s property led them to the gruesome discovery.

Officers opened a toolbox and found Capps’ body stuffed inside “with trauma to her head and face,” according to police. The 65-year-old “had been stabbed over 90 times on the head, face and neck.” Police found a black folding knife with a broken tip covered in dried blood in Roberts’ room, which was later found to be a match with the shard removed from Capps’ skull.

Roberts was found guilty of first-degree murder and stabbing in the commission of a felony on Nov. 20, 2025, after a three-day trial. Nearly six years after he murdered Capps– an avid gardener who formerly worked in the U.S. Air Force— Roberts finally learned his fate.

He was sentenced to life in prison, plus five years, on Feb. 25. However, Roberts maintained his innocence. “The picture you’re painting of me as a menace to society, and a killer with no remorse, is not true,” Roberts said before his sentencing, The Virginian Pilot reported. “I do have remorse. But I can’t lie and admit to something I didn’t do.”

Cavan Capps, the victim’s brother, asked, “Could you imagine living through the horror of looking at someone stabbing you and feeling the knife in your face? Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ isn’t that bad. It’s worse than anything you see on TV.”