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| Sheley's Attorneys Clarify Change of Venue Request, One Year Following Galesburg Man's Death |
UPDATED: 10:26pm 6/30/09 It's official -- attorneys for accused spree killer Nicholas Sheley now have evidence as to why don't want to have his local murder trial in Knox County.
A 20-page document filed Monday in Knox County Circuit Court -- a year after 65-year old Ronald Randall's body was found near a dumpster behind the East Main Street Hy Vee store -- is an amendment to an original motion filed in March.
It indicates that Sheley's attorneys -- Public Defender Jim Harrell, and co-counsel Jeremy Karlin and John Hanlon -- have conducted a phone survey where they attempted to contact just over three-thousand potential Knox County residents who could be called as jurors.
Of those, the amendment indicates that only 850 agreed to take part in the survey -- and of those, 87-percent believed Sheley would be guilty of murder, while only two people felt he would be innocent.
The amendment also indicates that about one-third felt that they could be impartial, while another two-thirds said prior knowledge of the case would make it hard.
Sheley faces ten felony counts of first-degree murder, and seven other felonies related to the suspected bludgeoning death of Randall and the stealing of his pick-up truck.
The Sterling man is also suspected of a half-dozen other murders in Whiteside County and in Missouri -- all one year ago -- and faces a separate Knox County case for an alleged jailhouse assault.
Sheley is scheduled to be in court twice next week -- once for each of the Knox County cases.
He remains jailed on over $10 million bond.
(Nicholas Sheley is led out of the Knox County Jail during a July 2008 hearing.)
(Galesburg Police Investigators search for clues in the area behind the East Main Street Hy Vee store June 30, 2008. WGIL News File Photos.) |
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| 06 30 09 by Newsroom |
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