Those ominous words, spoken by 71-year-old James King to a bartender on September 16, 2020, foreshadowed the tragic fate of Lexie Walters, whom King would later murder and sexually assault in Virginia Beach.

King, who had a previous conviction for a similar crime in 1986, assaulted Walters in their Days Inn hotel room after an evening of heavy drinking. He had plied Walters with multiple rum and Coke cocktails and Fireball whisky shots, while he drank five Budweisers. When the bartender cut Walters off due to her high level of intoxication, King tried to bribe them, saying, "She is dying anyway."

The two left the bar and went back to their hotel room. Surveillance footage showed them entering the room together, marking the last time Walters was seen alive. Throughout the night and into the morning, King was seen on surveillance making multiple trips to his car and back.

On the morning of September 17, 2020, King went to the Virginia Beach Police Department to report Walters' death, saying he wanted authorities to find her before housekeeping did. At the station, he admitted, "I did a murder gig in Ohio," referring to his previous conviction, and explained that he knew he would be going to jail.

Police found Walters’ body on a couch in the hotel room. Her injuries were severe, including signs of strangulation and blunt force trauma to multiple areas of her body, as well as evidence of sexual assault. King was subsequently convicted on October 17, 2024, of first-degree murder, murder in the commission of object sexual penetration, and object sexual penetration.

King’s history of violence began with a similar murder in 1986 in Lucas County, Ohio, where he had also turned himself in after the killing. The victim in that case, the mother of a bride at a wedding King attended, had similar injuries to Walters and was found dead in King’s apartment. In 2018, King was also convicted of assaulting a woman in Virginia Beach, for which he served a 12-month sentence.

King’s repeated patterns of violence underscore a tragic cycle, as this recent case mirrored the brutal circumstances of his past offenses