Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Six years ago I met Mathews County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jack Gill for the first time. Our introduction did not involve the normal pleasantries of first meetings, but rather the tragic circumstances surrounding the abduction and murder of a young woman attending her first year of college here in Richmond. Nearly a year later, her killer would stand in the Mathews County Courthouse and be found guilty of her murder. That outcome was a result of the relentlessness of her parents, the tremendous effort of law enforcement, and the steady hand and hard work of Jack Gill.

As I assisted Jack on that case, I watched him handle his daily responsibilities in Mathews County while spending extra hours traveling back and forth to Richmond to meet with law enforcement. There was no time of the day or night when he did not make himself available. His steadfast adherence to what was right, his prosecutorial instincts, and his ability to assimilate the details of such a large volume of information allowed him to convert the raw material of the investigation into a box from which this woman’s killer could not escape.

I got to know Jack both as a person and a prosecutor during that year and have remained a friend and a colleague ever since. Anyone who knows Jack knows he is not one who promotes nor seeks credit for himself. He scrupulously avoided the media during the case we prosecuted together, something uncommon in these times. And I did not learn until our case was nearly over that Jack had graduated from Yale Law School, and even then that fact came from someone else. That’s just Jack, and it is one of the admirable things about him personally, though it is certainly not beneficial politically. That decency and modesty that doesn’t conform to the world of politics are the same qualities that make him such an extraordinary person and such an unusual candidate for office. They are the same traits we all say we long to see in an elected official. Jack would not say any of these things, but any objective observer would.

The bottom line is Jack Gill has the character, competence, and experience that a Commonwealth’s Attorney requires. He has proven it over the last 20 years as he quietly, and without fanfare, has done what a Commonwealth’s Attorney is elected to do. I trust and hope that the good citizens of Mathews County will re-elect him.

Chris Bullard

Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney

City of Richmond, Va.