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Elizabeth City County (Va.) Commonwealth Causes Ended, 1826-1930, are criminal court cases and consist primarily of warrants, summons, indictments, and verdicts handed down by grand juries and other legal authorities in order to prosecute individuals who violated the penal code. These offenses ranged in severity from murder, rape, assault and battery, to fornication, adultery, selling spirits without a license, larceny, and tax evasion. Criminal offenders and victims who appear in cases prior to the abolition of slavery in Virginia in 1865 included both free and enslaved persons.

Elizabeth City County (Va.) Commonwealth versus Virginia Christian, 1912 Apr.-1912 Aug. 16, contains the Commonwealth Cause against Virginia Christian. Christian was convicted 1912 May 15 of murdering her employer, Ida V. Belote, 1912 Mar. 18 and sentenced to death by electrocution. According to evidence submitted by the Commonwealth, Christian was 17 years old at the time of the murder. She petitioned the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals for a writ of error, requesting that she be committed to a reformatory because she was a child under the age of seventeen years when the crime was committed. The motion was denied 1912 Jun 12, and Christian was executed 1912 Aug. 16.

Elizabeth City County (Va.) Coroner's Report related to the death of Ida V. Belote, 1912 Mar. 30, contains the report submitted by Elizabeth City County Coroner, Dr. G.K. Vanderslice, on the death of Belote in her home 1912 Mar. 18. The report contains the Coroner's examination of the body and the room where the victim was found, his postmortem examination of the victim, and testimony taken at the sheriff's office 1912 Mar. 18 and submitted as evidence to the coroner's jury.