BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
District Judge Gabe Pendleton found, after a preliminary hearing Monday afternoon, that probable cause existed for the case in which James E. Campbell is charged with murder and two counts of first-degree wanton endangerment to go forward and be referred to a grand jury.
Campbell, who remains lodged at the Barren County Detention Center, attended the hearing via a video streaming service. He is accused of fatally shooting Roger L. Noland of Scottsville on Feb. 10 at Campbell’s residence – an apartment along North Race Street in his adult son’s name – in Glasgow. Noland was pronounced deceased at T.J. Samson Community Hospital after being transported there by ambulance.
Defense attorney Johnny Bell had requested at Campbell’s arraignment his bond of $500,000 be reduced, and Pendleton told him he would await getting more information at the preliminary hearing before he would be willing to consider it. Bell raised the issue again at the conclusion of the hearing, suggesting a requirement of only 10 percent – $50,000 – surety and/or home incarceration and/or an ankle monitor. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Resa Gardner opposed any modification to the bond and took issue with Bell’s characterization that Campbell had no criminal history.
Pendleton said he would take the bond matter under advisement.
In the hearing, Glasgow Police Department Justin Kirkpatrick testified that he arrived on the scene an estimated 35 to 40 minutes after officers were initially dispatched to the scene, listing the personnel already there and noting that Campbell was in custody in an officer’s cruiser at the time.
Kirkpatrick testified that, based on interviews with Campbell and Nelson, the accounts he has obtained include the following:
Campbell and the person identified as an adult female witness, 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.
Noland had no firearm nor other weapon that was found, and Kirkpatrick said nothing has been said to him to to indicate Campbell thought otherwise, and there was never any actual physical contact between the two men.
After the gunshot struck Noland in his left chest area, Noland returned to the vehicle and started throwing things out of his pockets, and Nelson ran toward him. In the midst of this, 911 was called.
Gardner asked Kirkpatrick, “Based on your investigation and things you learned that night, is there anything that would suggest to you that Mr. Campbell was justified in using self-defense?”
“No ma’am,” Kirkpatrick said.
Bell asked several questions focusing on Nelson’s actions, the content of the messages, which Kirkpatrick said he did not have with him, and whether the police searched the area around the vehicle where Noland had been throwing things. Kirkpatrick said they had looked around the parking lot some, looking for ballistic evidence, but he personally could not attest to any searching that had occurred before he arrived.
Another male, minor child of Nelson’s was in the car during these actions.
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