Stephen M. Epperly v. E.L. Booker, Warden Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia

OPINION

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge:

In 1980, Stephen M. Epperly was convicted by a Virginia jury of the first-degree murder of Gina Hall. He received a life sentence. Neither Hall’s body nor a weapon was ever found; there were no eyewitnesses to the killing; and Epperly never confessed. Thus, the evidence of Hall’s death and of Epperly’s complicity in it was entirely circumstantial.

Epperly’s conviction was affirmed on direct appeal. Epperly v. Commonwealth, 224 Va. 214, 294 S.E.2d 882 (1982). He exhaust ed his state post-conviction remedies, Epperly v. Booker, 235 Va. 35, 366 S.E.2d 62 (1988), and…