"When you do a job, you do it right."

I recently watched a Lifetime movie on Netflix about Melanie McGuire, who shot her husband, cut him up into pieces, placed the body parts into suitcases, and dumped them into the Chesapeake Bay. Though I do not like Lifetime productions for various reasons, this movie conjured up memories of the time I interviewed James Alton Motes in 2006, after his conviction for murder but prior to entering prison. There will never be a Hollywood motion picture made about Motes for there is nothing "sexy" about him or his killing of his sister. His story does not involve a large city, celebrities, attractive blonde females, handsome intelligent men, or any other hooks to grab the attention of the viewing public. Motes was a 53-year-old laborer with a potbelly and a 7th-grade education.

Motes had been living in Las Vegas for years but his older sister, Nancy Motes Wingfield, was alone and needed help maintaining her home in rural Henry County in Southwest Virginia. The two were never close and James had moved away as a young man, in part, to escape the annoying and nagging behaviors of his sister. When he returned to Virginia, he soon learned his sister had not changed and James began to seethe. Sometime in late December, early January, after an incident at a hobby store involving some twine, the relationship between James and Nancy reached a boiling point.

The facts get fuzzy, but James remembered grabbing the twine while his sister was lying on her waterbed and strangling her to death. He had no plan and his attack was an impulsive reaction. As he thought about what next to do, James noticed there was blood on Nancy's sheets, surprised him. He pulled the bedding away to wash it, which revealed the cylindric soft plastic baffles of the waterbed. The use of baffles, individual tubes filled with water, prevented the potential of a massive flood had the bed been constructed using one giant "balloon" of water. James looked at the baffles and nodded his head in silent agreement with his sudden improvisation.

James removed the baffles from the bed and drained the water from each one by cutting off their tops. He placed two garbage cans side-by-side in the bathroom and put the body of Nancy into one of them. Using a handsaw, he then proceeded to dissect his sister into 19 pieces and shoved the pieces of flesh and bone into the baffles. When Nancy's head proved to be too large to fit, James sawed it in half.

James realized he had no motorized transportation (his pickup truck needed mechanical work), so he rode his bike about a mile to a desolate area and dropped off a shovel. He returned home, collected all the baffles filled with body parts, connected two each with a piece of rope, draped them over his neck, put on a large overcoat to conceal his bloody baggage, and rode back to the vacant area. He ended up burying his sister there and in his backyard.

As police investigative pressure began to mount, James felt sorry for the detectives. He "saw their red eyes, and knew they were tired", and he "felt bad" because he "was keeping them away from their families during the holidays." One day, after spending time with investigators, James downed a glass of antifreeze and passed out. He awoke in the hospital.

James Motes was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Before heading to the Big House, the Virginia State Police behavioral analysis unit was granted permission to interview him. He agreed to speak with us if we brought him a box of honey buns.

When we praised him on the complexity of his homicidal work product and the ability to think quickly on his feet while possessing a limited education, he replied, "My mother always taught me, when you do a job, you do it right."