The defense team of Landon Stinson — a Cadiz man charged with the July 2021 double-murder of Sue Faris and Matthew Blakeley — made relentless efforts toward a motion of suppression Friday afternoon in Trigg County Circuit Court, in regard to evidence acquired at his Julien Road duplex.
But it was in those closing moments of the 3 ½ hour hearing in which two developments came to light.
No. 1: Commonwealth’s Attorney Carrie Ovey-Wiggins relayed a supplemental notice, informing Circuit Judge Natalie White and the court that the death penalty will not be sought. Instead, aggravators, if convicted, could lead to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole in the first 25 years.
And No. 2: Stinson’s sister, Katelynn Schiro, testified for more than 20 minutes…in order to show standing of Stinson’s residence at the time of the murders, which was reportedly transitioning between the Cerulean Road and Julien Road residences and of Stinson’s free will.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Jill Giordano brought cross examination about the coming and going at the Faris home.
Earlier in the hearing, defenders Chris Woodall and Bill Deatherage urged that Kentucky State Police detectives David Dick and Brian Hill, as well as two other detectives, may have located, photographed and seized materials on the Julien Road property before a search warrant and affidavit was writ and signed by Christian County Circuit Judge Andrew Self.
Subpoenaed by the defense, Dick and Hill were separated for blind questioning, in order to see if their recollections and procedures aligned. Both were asked to retread steps not only from two years ago at the scenes of the crime, but also from the previous hearing August 28.
Under the tightest microscope and the true essence of Friday: whether the timestamps on at least 100 photos from Julien Road, as well as the computer-aided dispatch report, possessed metadata and hard stops on time, or rather loose interpretations of investigation timelines.
According to multiple documents and repeated testimony, Self’s signature on the search warrant and related notes came at 6:29 PM, July 3, 2021.
Dick went through 90 minutes of testimony and cross examination from Woodall and Giordano, with Commonwealth’s Attorney Carrie Ovey-Wiggins objecting near the midway point.
Woodall then presented Dick with more than 125 KSP photos of the Julien Road crime scene — in which 25 of them, presented last week as new discovery from the Commonwealth, possessed metadata one hour prior to the originally submitted batch. Dick testified that two photographers were used, and that in submitting the photos to Frankfort, duplicate file numbers were discovered.
Photos of a destroyed phone and black bag filled with paraphernalia, located along the treeline by Stinson’s mother Rhonda Neighbors, were taken — according to metadata — around 6:06-6:07 PM.
Eventually, the Commonwealth would again object.
White said she would have her orders out by next week. Stinson’s trial is set to begin with jury selection the morning of September 18, and could last up to two weeks.
White also struck down the testimony of David Robertson, an IT systems engineer and integrator at Forefront Solutions, who was called in to properly describe metadata. And why, perhaps, 25 new photos of the Julien Road crime scene presented by the Commonwealth would have timestamps of 5:28 PM, July 3, 2021, when most of the photos taken had different marks.
It was removed because the Commonwealth had been given, in their eyes, insufficient time to respond and prepare for an expert witness. Woodall and Deatherage said it was “likely” this concept would be revisited during the trial proceedings.
Hill, meanwhile, testified for nearly 30 minutes — answering some of the same questions Dick did under Woodall. He spent considerable time as one of the two photographers for the scenes, but much like his counterpart, did not have the expertise required to discuss the matters of regional dispatch.
