By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Due to the uncertainty of how long it may take a state crime lab to examine relatively new potential evidence in his murder case, the jury trial for James Edward Campbell that had been planned for early September is canceled.
Campbell, now 47, is charged with murder and two counts of wanton endangerment in connection with the shooting of Roger Noland, 35, of Scottsville in February 2023 outside Campbell’s Glasgow apartment. Noland was pronounced deceased at T.J. Samson Community Hospital after being transported there by ambulance.
According to police testimony during Campbell’s preliminary hearing, also in February 2023, it had been learned that Campbell and Felicia Nelson have two children together. Nelson and Noland had been dating approximately 15 months, and they were engaged to be married. A message Campbell had sent to Noland advising him to get a job had created some tension between the two. Noland and Nelson had come to Glasgow to bring Campbell and Nelson’s children to visit with their father. During their time here, there was “a mild to moderate verbal confrontation.”
Later, with those two children inside the apartment, Noland, who was driving, and Nelson, were in the car about to leave when Campbell “verbalized something that got their attention to make them stop.” Nelson got out of the vehicle and approached Campbell and they met somewhere between the vehicle and where Campbell had been in the porch area, and she was asking him why he was behaving as he was. Noland had also emerged from the vehicle and then approached them, asking essentially the same thing. It was during this confrontation that Noland was shot, according to preliminary hearing testimony.
At that same hearing, defense attorney Johnny Bell asked about whether the vicinity of the incident where Noland was said to have thrown something(s) had been searched, but the police captain testifying had not been present the entire time and could not speak to how much searching had been done. No weapon was found on or around Noland on the day of the shooting, according to the testimony.
On Monday, at a pretrial conference for Campbell, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Resa Gardner recapped that mediation had been attempted to possibly find a resolution to the case, but it was unsuccessful. In the time since the mediation, a gun was found in the location of the crime that had occurred roughly a year before that.
The weapon has been sent for testing.
“I think it would be safe at this point to take it off the trial docket at this time,” Gardner told Circuit Judge John T. Alexander, adding a suggestion that they schedule a new pretrial conference for around the time the trial would have been – the first week of September, and hopefully they would have a better idea of the status by then.
Alexander, restating, asked whether it was accurate that they were relatively sure the testing would not be completed in time for any evidence from it to be presented at trial.
“I am confident,” Gardner said, “in saying that I was told that just to even process for fingerprints at this point, it would take a year.”
The judge said two labs are serving the entire state, but some tests can only be done at one, so the situation is that they essentially “get in line, and they get to you when they get to you,” and it’s not unusual to find that the processing won’t be done according to the preferred schedule.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Alexander said, agreeing that removing the trial from the docket for now would be a smart thing to do.
A new pretrial conference was scheduled for Sept. 16.
After Monday’s proceeding, Glasgow News 1 learned the gun in question was found March 13.
Commonwealth’s Attorney John Gardner said it was in the vicinity of where the shooting took place but at the opposite end of the parking lot under a storage shed.
Resa Gardner said that, “at this time, there is nothing directly linking the gun to the victim in this crime.”
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