A man accused of beating a Goochland County woman nearly to death last year was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Sept.30.

Irvin Leroy “Chubby” Martin, 47, was convicted in July for an attack that fractured the skull of former Gum Spring neighbor Missy Riley the morning of Feb. 5, 2007. In a non-jury trial, Circuit Judge Timothy K. Sanner also convicted him of stealing Riley’s van, setting it on fire and stealing another vehicle in an escape that eventually led him out of state as a fugitive for months.

The relationship between the two and the circumstances surrounding the attack have been unclear, but Sanner reduced during the trial an aggravated malicious wounding count against Irvin Leroy “Chubby” Martin Martin to unlawful wounding, because the beating might have been provoked, the judge said in court yesterday.

Sanner referred to an accusation that Riley was trying to take money from Martin. However, in sentencing Martin to the maximum allowable prison term for unlawful wounding—five years—the judge punished Martin for the severity of the attack.

“Regardless of what the provocation might have been, that was no reason for her to be struck or beaten in that way,” Sanner said. He sentenced Martin to three years in prison for arson and one year for each of two counts of car theft.

Martin had served a 10-year prison stint in Kentucky for stalking and threatening a woman in that state, according to statements in court. In November 2006, he rented a room near Riley’s home while he worked construction. His roommates described him as peaceable and churchgoing, but reserved.

However, he’d been accused of making threats and property destruction at the time of the assault, police said.

Riley sustained multiple head fractures, a broken nose and a broken finger from the assault. A family member found her bloodied beneath some sheets nine hours after the beating.

Martin eventually fled to Arkansas, assumed an alias, worked odd jobs and told people there that his family had died in a car crash. After his case aired on “America’s Most Wanted,” tips led police in October to his whereabouts.

Claiborne Stokes, Goochland’s commonwealth’s attorney, urged Sanner to lock Martin up for 20 years, given his history of threats and violence. “The commonwealth strongly believes, when this man gets out. . . . he will hurt other people,” Stokes said.

But again raising questions about the relationship between the two, Martin’s lawyer, David Branch, noted that Riley didn’t submit a victim’s impact statement to be weighed at sentencing.

Calvin R. Trice is a staff writer for The Times-Dispatch.