AP News, September 20th, 2007
The capital murder trial of an escaped inmate accused of killing a deputy sheriff and a hospital guard will be moved out of Montgomery County, the judge decided after three days of attempting to select a jury.
William Morva's attorneys had long argued for moving the trial because of extensive publicity here, and not only in August 2006 when the shootings occurred. The manhunt for Morva shut down the Virginia Tech campus on the first day of classes last year, a fact residents were reminded of in April, when a gunman murdered 32 people on the campus before killing himself.
Family members of the victims cried softly as Circuit Court Judge Ray Grubbs agreed to move the trial. Many prospective jurors had relationships with principals in the case, raising "the issue of credibility" of a Montgomery County jury deliberating the case, he said.
Seventy potential jurors had been interviewed over three days, with 45 dismissed for cause. Of those, Grubbs said, 22 of them have relationships with parties close to the case.
Of 24 chosen as potential jurors, defense attorney Tony Anderson said, nearly all had some knowledge of the case and four said they had an opinion about it that they would put aside. He said there is "a pervasiveness of prejudice in Montgomery County against Mr. Morva."
Prosecutor Brad Finch had argued to keep the trial in Montgomery County but promised to "bring justice to the case" regardless of where it is held.
Court Clerk Allan Burke said a decision on the new location for Morva's trial is expected in about two weeks, and that it probably will be scheduled in early 2008.
Prosecutors allege that Morva killed hospital security guard Derrick McFarland, 32, after he was taken to Montgomery Regional Hospital for treatment of an injury, police have said. He is charged with overpowering a sheriff's deputy and using his pistol to kill the security guard.
Morva, 25, is charged with killing county sheriff's Cpl. Eric Sutphin, 40, a day later on a walking trail near the Virginia Tech campus. The deputy was among hundreds of police officers searching for the escaped prisoner, who was discovered in thick brush not far from where Sutphin was slain.
When he escaped, Morva was in jail awaiting trial on attempted robbery charges. He was convicted of those charges earlier this year and sentenced to 38 years in prison.
The Virginia Tech massacre, the worst school shooting in U.S. history, began when a student killed two people in a dormitory. About two hours later, he killed 30 people and wounded 23 in a classroom building before committing suicide.
School officials on campus transmitted warnings by e-mail and sirens about two hours after the first shootings, but they did not shut down the campus. Parents of some victims have questioned why officials handled the campus shootings differently from the manhunt for Morva.
University officials have said it would have been unworkable or even dangerous to shut down the campus, and that authorities initially thought the first two killings in the massacre were a domestic shooting.
