After too few jurors showed up for the trial to begin, the judge delayed the trial of an Alabama truck driver accused of murdering two adolescents in 1999.
Records indicate that on Tuesday, Dale County Circuit Court Judge William H. Filmore issued a one-sentence order delaying Coley McCraney, 48,’s trial.
The jury selection process began on Monday, but only 75 of the 250 potential jurors showed up, and that number was swiftly lowered due to factors including the widespread media coverage of the deaths and McCraney’s arrest. A
ccording to CBS station WTVY-TV, the court postponed the trial until next year because there weren’t enough persons from whom the lawyers could choose a jury.
On July 31, 1999, J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett, both 17 years old, vanished after leaving for a party in southeast Alabama.
Each youngster had been shot in the head when their remains were discovered the next day in the trunk of Beasley’s black Mazda along a road near Ozark.
Before police recruited a firm to run crime scene DNA through an internet genealogical database, the case languished for decades without an arrest.
McCraney was detained in 2019 after investigators said they had discovered a match with genetic evidence discovered at the murder site. McCraney has pled not guilty.
The investigation took a startling turn last week when a lady who had claimed that the police were involved in the deaths admitted that she had been lying the whole time.