By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Analyses from the state crime lab related to a gun found last year that may be connected to a local homicide case may be completed by early June.
Commonwealth’s Attorney John Gardner reported this update to Circuit Judge John T. Alexander at a pretrial conference for James Edward Campbell on Monday. Campbell is charged with murder in relation to the fatal shooting of 35-year-old Roger Noland of Scottsville in February 2023. His trial had been scheduled for September 2024, but it became clear the laboratory would not have its report on any testing ready by then, so the trial was postponed indefinitely.
The gun from which the fatal shot was fired had been in evidence already and is not the one in question at the lab. The latter weapon was found in mid-March 2024 in the vicinity of where the shooting took place but at the opposite end of the parking lot under a storage shed, prosecutors have told Glasgow News 1.
Noland was pronounced deceased at T.J. Samson Community Hospital after being transported there – less than a mile away from where the shooting occurred outside the apartment where Campbell was living – by ambulance. Noland and his fiancee, Felicia Nelson, with whom Campbell has two children, had come to Glasgow to bring Campbell and Nelson’s children to visit with their father. Those children were inside the apartment, and Noland, Nelson and a male child were in a vehicle about to leave when a verbal dispute began that led to a confrontation outside the vehicle and, ultimately, Noland’s death.
Campbell also faces two counts of wanton endangerment due to the proximity of Nelson and her son to the situation when the shooting took place.
According to previous court testimony, after Noland was injured, he returned to the vehicle and was throwing things.
At a pretrial conference in November, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Resa Gardner told the judge that part of the lab results had been received, and they indicated that no fingerprints were found on the handgun, but it had not been determined whether any biological specimens were on it that could be further tested for DNA.
John Gardner told the judge Monday that he and Campbell’s attorney, Johnny Bell, had discussed possible dates for the next pretrial conference, and June 9 and 16 were both out. With that, the next court date was set for June 23.
CORRECTIONS: Two dates have been corrected since the original publication of this report.
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