A Mercer County judge has been selected to replace retiring U.S. Magistrate Judge R. Clarke VanDervort, who announced his retirement earlier this year.

Mercer County Circuit Court Judge Omar J. Aboulhosn has been selected by the Merit Selection Panel to be West Virginia's newest magistrate.

"I'm honestly very honored by the selection," he told the Gazette-Mail on Wednesday.

The order has yet to become official, as Aboulhosn is still going through background checks from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service.

Born in 1967 to Jim and May Aboulhosn, who emigrated to the United States from Lebanon, he was raised in Princeton and graduated from the West Virginia University College of Law in 1992.

Aboulhosn practiced law in Bluefield beginning in 1992 and began serving as a magistrate in 1996. From 1997 to 1999 he served as Princeton City Court Judge.

In 2008, Aboulhosn was elected judge of the 12th Family Court Circuit but he did not enter the role, as then-Gov. Joe Manchin appointed him to a new circuit judge position in the Ninth Judicial Circuit, the seat he is now exiting.

In addition to his judicial duties in Mercer County, Aboulhosn currently serves as chairman of West Virginia's Supreme Court of Appeals Juvenile Justice Commission.

He has also been appointed on several occasions to sit on the Supreme Court to hear cases in which a justice was recused.

In 2007, Aboulhosn received the Governor's Service Award for volunteer community service.

He is also a current member of the Board of Directors of the Jonathan Powell Hope Foundation, which helps families of children with cancer.

While Aboulhosn's list of accomplishments and community engagements is long, last year he was admonished by the state's Judicial Investigation Commission.

According to the agency's 2014 annual report, Aboulhosn was admonished for "going to the home of a litigant in a divorce case that he was presiding over to direct the seizure of assets following the entry of an Order of Seizure."

Discussing VanDervort, Aboulhosn admitted that he's got some big shoes to fill, adding that his predecessor is a "great jurist" who always had a good demeanor.

Explaining what an honor it is to be named to serve as VanDervort's replacement, Aboulhosn said it was a classic story of the American Dream coming true.

"It's more of a testament to my mom and dad," he said. "If I didn't have good parents, I wouldn't be in this position."

Reach Joel Ebert at 304-348-4843, joel.ebert@dailymailwv.com, or follow @joelebert29 on Twitter.

POMEROY, Ohio - Nicole Abboud's voice was shaky at times, but she managed to hold back tears while confronting the man who killed her younger sister and describing the pain the girl's death has caused the Cross Lanes family.

Ernest Roach, 36, of Racine, Ohio, pleaded guilty Thursday to the murder of 16-year-old Ericka Brown, a sophomore at Nitro High School. A judge sentenced him to life in prison, but he will be eligible for parole after 19 years.

Roach strangled Brown, the prosecutor revealed for the first time after the hearing. Police had not said how Brown was killed but said her body was found wrapped in plastic on the banks of the Ohio River at Portland, in Meigs County, Ohio, on Aug. 30, 2014 - 20 days after she was reported missing.

Roach had tied a cinder block to Brown with a ratchet strap before leaving her body in the water.

"She had so many life goals she wanted to accomplish," Abboud said while looking at Roach, who kept his head down during most of the hearing.

In addition to the murder charge, Roach also pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse. The murder charge carries a mandatory 15 years to life prison sentence and Roach's attorney asked that Judge I. Carson Crow allow the jail sentences for the additional charges to run at the same time. Crow said, though, that the crime was too severe to provide any leniency.

"Consecutive sentences are appropriate because the harm is so great," the judge said. "A single prison sentence would not be adequate."

A trial had been set to begin next week, but Roach reached a deal with prosecutors earlier this month. The deal dropped additional counts of the evidence tampering and gross abuse charges. Prosecutors also agreed to allow Roach to smoke cigarettes for one hour - on one day only - in exchange for his guilty plea.

Roach met Brown on the Internet after the girl posted an ad on craigslist.org seeking men because she wanted money, according to deputies with the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office. She was killed the same day she was reported missing, Aug. 10.

Roach was interviewed by Kanawha sheriff's deputies on Aug. 27, 2014, after deputies found his cellphone number on Brown's phone. Roach claimed to have no knowledge of the girl and agreed to come back the next day to take a polygraph test. Instead, he fled the area. Roach was arrested two days later by the Ohio State Police in Washington County, Ohio.

Meigs County Prosecuting Attorney Colleen Williams said after Thursday's hearing that Roach hadn't plotted to kill Brown, but became angry with her. That's why Roach wasn't charged with aggravated murder, which carries the possibility of the death penalty in Ohio, the prosecutor said.

Federal authorities in West Virginia dropped charges against Roach for crossing state lines to engage in illicit sexual contact with Brown. U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said his office wanted to drop the charge so the murder case could move forward faster. The charge was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it can be refiled.

Roach didn't have anything to say when the judge asked him if he wanted to speak before his sentence was handed down. Before the hearing began, he talked and laughed with a woman sitting behind him. A bailiff identified the woman as Roach's sister.

A victim's advocate read a letter that Brown's father, David, wrote. He wrote that Ericka Brown was the youngest of his three children and that he knew immediately that something was wrong when she didn't come home or call to check on her horses. She had wanted to be a veterinarian.

"How could any man do what this man did to my daughter's body?" his statement asked. "Leaving her on that river bank, knowing that her family was searching for her for 20 days.

"A friend of mine showed me a picture on this man's Facebook a couple days before Ericka's body was found. He posted a picture of himself smiling, like he didn't have a care in the world."

Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey does not have to release emails and other documents that could shed light on Morrisey's role in his office's lawsuit against drug giant Cardinal Health, a company his wife lobbies for, Kanawha Circuit Judge Charles King has ruled.

Morrisey has fought for two years to keep the emails confidential. The Charleston Gazette filed a lawsuit against the attorney general after he refused to release the documents to the newspaper, which requested them under the state Freedom of Information Act.

"We are pleased that the court made the right call on this case," Morrisey said in a prepared statement. "As we have consistently stated, we have followed the law and gone much further than the law requires in order to operate with the best ethical practices.

"From the beginning, this case has been politically motivated and an unnecessary burden on this office and a drain of taxpayers' resources. We are glad we can move on and continue doing the state's work."

After reviewing the records in private, King concluded that seven of the eight documents weren't public records.

King wrote that the only public record - a May 16, 2013, email between Morrisey's former chief deputy, Dan Greear, and Charleston lawyer Jim Cagle - contains a single reference to the Cardinal Health lawsuit, but does not show if Morrisey played any role in the case. Cagle is handling the Cardinal Health lawsuit for Morrisey's office.

In previous filings, Morrisey's office had described the email as "highly sensitive."

According to King's order, "[Morrisey] is not mentioned" in the first part of the email. The order does not say if Morrisey's name shows up elsewhere in the email.

In a previous filing, the Attorney General's Office acknowledged, "The second portion of the email mentions [Morrisey], but does not mention the Cardinal Health litigation specifically."

In his order, King wrote that Morrisey also could withhold the email because it is "clearly protected ... by attorney-client privilege."

King ruled that Morrisey didn't have to release three additional emails and several "to-do lists" because "they deal with [Morrisey's] private decision regarding his own responsibilities under the West Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct."

Morrisey has said he hired a private lawyer in 2013 to advise him if he could take part in the Cardinal Health lawsuit "in the future." The lawyer advised him that the Cardinal Health lawsuit didn't pose a conflict of interest, according to Morrisey's former spokeswoman. Morrisey has refused to reveal the lawyer's name.

The Gazette had asked the judge to review Morrisey's emails and other documents and to order the attorney general to release any records that would show he continued to oversee the Cardinal Health case after repeatedly stating that he had recused himself from the lawsuit.

The Gazette recently combined with the Charleston Daily Mail to form the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Morrisey has asked a Putnam County judge to require the Daily Gazette Co. to turn over information about the joining of the newspapers. The judge asked both sides earlier this month to meet and decide what seems reasonable to turn over.

Morrisey inherited the Cardinal Health lawsuit from former attorney general Darrell McGraw, who alleged that the drug wholesaler helped fuel West Virginia's problem with prescription drugs by shipping an excessive number of pain pills to the state.

Cardinal Health, the nation's second-largest drug distributor, later contributed to Morrisey's inauguration party, and the company's executives wrote checks to Morrisey's campaign before and after the November 2012 election.

Morrisey's wife, Denise Henry, is a longtime Capitol Hill lobbyist for Cardinal Health. The drug wholesaler has paid Henry's lobbying firm, Capitol Counsel, $940,000 since Morrisey took office in January 2013. He has said he stepped aside from the Cardinal Health lawsuit that month and appointed Greear, his top aide, to manage the case for the Attorney General's Office.

Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazette.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.

FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. - Sixteen years after the pieces of a man's badly burned body were recovered near Oak Hill, his alleged killer was arraigned Thursday in Fayette Circuit Court.

Fayette County Sheriff Steve Kessler, who as a detective began the investigation into Jonathan Wesley Skaggs' death in 1999, was in the courtroom when a judge handed Alfred Clinton Toney, 44, a copy of the murder indictment against him.

Skaggs' badly burned body was recovered in pieces near Oak Hill, beginning on Aug. 20, 1999. His mother had reported her 24-year-old son missing.

In previous interviews, Toney has maintained he had nothing to do with Skaggs' murder, and expressed sympathy for the Skaggs family. Several times Thursday, he tried to turn in his seat and face members of the Skaggs' family. An officer who had Toney in custody kept telling him to face the front of the courtroom.

Fayette Circuit Judge John Hatcher appointed Public Defender Scott Stanton to represent Toney. On Toney's behalf, Stanton told the judge that Toney pleaded not guilty.

As he was led out of the courtroom, Toney mouthed the words, "I'm so sorry" to Skaggs' family members, including his father, Gary Skaggs, and several others.

Kessler and Fayette County Prosecuting Attorney Larry E. Harrah II met with the Skaggs family behind closed doors. Both men acknowledged how pleased they were that the family may come closer to finding out what happened to their son.

After the arraignment, Harrah told reporters that the case was never closed. He also said it was a credit to the "resiliency of Steve Kessler" and the toughness of the Skaggs family that the case could move forward.

In an answer to reporters' questions, Harrah said he had no new evidence or witnesses. Harrah took office in January, but he said he was always aware of the case.

"I bring a different way of looking at the case," the prosecutor said.

In 1999, Toney was living in Dempsey Branch, a tiny community outside Oak Hill. He hosted a party on Aug. 15, 1999, the last day Skaggs was seen alive.

A group of people found Skaggs intoxicated and in the middle of the road. They called police and an ambulance. (The Skaggs family filed a wrongful death suit against county officials after they learned a deputy drove Jonathan Skaggs to Toney's party. According to the suit, Skaggs told the deputy he would be in trouble if he came home so drunk.)

In a previous interview, Toney said many people threw items into a growing fire in his fire pit at the party. He also said trash, tires and wood were in the fire, and some members of his family asked him to clean up around the family home, so there was furniture in the fire pit, too. The fire burned for days.

Deputies and other experts eventually sifted through the fire debris, they used a wire screen. Eventually, they took several hundred pounds of debris, including bone fragments, to the state Medical Examiner's office. An expert from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. was also called in to help identify remains.

Since Skaggs' death, Toney has been in and out of court. For the last few years, he has been an inmate at the St. Marys Correctional Center, serving time for credit card fraud.

He was set to be arraigned Friday along with others indicted by the Fayette County grand jury. But Fayette Circuit Judge Hatcher heard Toney's case separately Thursday.

They agreed that Toney will be returned to St. Marys for now, but they also agreed they will work out housing for him so that he can work with his lawyer.

The judge set Nov. 2 as the trial date.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia University is reporting a drop in criminal activity on campus.

The Dominion Post reports the university has released its annual crime report.

The report says university police had 335 on-campus liquor-law violation arrests in 2014. That is down from 551 arrests in 2013.

The report shows there was also a decrease in drug arrests, from 205 in 2013 to 183 in 2014.

The number of burglary cases dropped from 20 to 16 in 2014.

Information from: The Dominion Post, http://www.dominionpost.com

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (AP) - A Parkersburg man has been indicted on a murder charge in connection with the death of another man.

Multiple media outlets report that the Wood County grand jury indicted 30-year-old James Robert Brandjes this week.

Brandjes is accused of killing Mark Weaver at Weaver's home in Parkersburg on July 25.

The U.S. Marshals Service Great Lakes Regional Task Force arrested Brandjes on Aug. 19 in Chicago.

Brandjes is being held without bond at the North Central Regional Jail. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had retained an attorney to comment on the charges.

MOOREFIELD, W.Va. - Police say the boyfriend of a slain West Virginia teacher shot and wounded himself in Virginia.

Moorefield Police Chief Steven Reckart tells multiple media outlets that the body of Moorefield Middle School teacher Joy Coby was found Wednesday morning near her home in Moorefield. Police went to check on Coby, 45, after she failed to appear for work.

Police began searching for Coby's boyfriend, Jared D. Connors, 47, who lived with her. He was tracked by his cell phone to near Staunton, Virginia.

Police say Connors shot himself inside Coby's car in the parking lot of a Walmart in Staunton as a Virginia State Police trooper approached him.

Reckart said Coby was in critical condition at the University of Virginia Medical Center.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (AP) - A Martinsburg man faces charges of embezzling more than $170,000 from his employer.

The Journal reports that Joseph William Pugh Jr., 65, was arraigned on Thursday on a felonious embezzlement count.

Pugh is accused of embezzling the money over a seven-year period from Heiston Supply Company.

State Police say the investigation began after the company's president discovered $400 was missing from a business deposit on July 31. The company's president told state police that Pugh took over the deposits in 2008.

WINFIELD - Police brought Putnam County resident Philip Casto, who allegedly killed a Hurricane woman last week, back to West Virginia on Friday to face a first-degree murder charge.

Casto, 33, of Scott Depot, shot 27-year-old Jennifer Evans in the head on Sept. 10 at her residence, according to a criminal complaint filed in Putnam Magistrate Court. Her husband, Michael Evans, found her lying dead on the kitchen floor at about 5:30 p.m. that day.

Massachusetts police captured Casto on Sept. 11 at a shopping mall in Braintree, a suburb of Boston. On Monday, he told a Massachusetts court that he would not fight extradition back to West Virginia.

Friday afternoon, a week after his capture, Casto was arraigned by Magistrate Scot Lawrence in Putnam Magistrate Court in Winfield.

Casto spoke little, other than to tell Lawrence he understood the charge and the proceedings, and to tell reporters "no comment" as he quickly walked into the Putnam County Judicial Building.

He wore orange jail-issued clothing and showed no emotion. At the end of the arraignment, after he'd been told he would be held without bail and could face life in prison, his neck protruded as he visibly swallowed while he waited in silence to be escorted out.

Mariah Casto, the wife of Philip Casto, told police he and Jennifer Evans had recently ended an affair, according to the complaint. But Evans' husband, Michael Evans, only told police that his wife was being "pursued" by Philip Casto, and that she had recently broken off all communication with him, the complaint stated.

On Sept. 10, Michael Evans received a text message from his wife saying that Philip Casto was at their home. Michael Evans told her to call the police. He then asked the landlord to go to the townhouse to check on her, but no one answered the door.

That same day, Mariah Casto said she came home to find "what seemed to be a suicide note" from her husband, the complaint stated.

"He sent her a text message saying he had seen something today that he could not forget," Putnam Sheriff's Sgt. Lisa Arthur wrote in the criminal complaint. "He informed her that he was on his way home."

She responded that she had called the police, and Casto did not respond or return home.

Casto bought a gun the day before the shooting, according to the complaint. After obtaining a search warrant, police found a .40-caliber shell casing near Jennifer Evans' body, the complaint stated.

Police checked local gun dealers and found that Casto had bought a .40-caliber Glock handgun from Ultimate Pawn in Hurricane on Sept. 9. Employees at Putnam circuit and magistrate courts said they found no criminal record for Casto.

Surveillance video from a nearby home shows a car pull into the parking area near the Evans residence at 4:38 p.m. on Sept. 10, then a person going up the stairs, according to the complaint. The video shows the person leaving at 4:54 p.m. in the car, which is "consistent in appearance" with Philip Casto's Honda Civic, investigators wrote in the complaint.

Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazette.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.

The lawsuit Marmet Mayor Bill Pauley filed against members of the town's Council was thrown out Friday.

Pauley had filed suit asking a Kanawha County Circuit Judge to determine whether he or town council calls the shots in Marmet. Pauley contended that Marmet has a strong mayor form of government, giving him final say over the hiring of employees and town expenditures. Council members argued Pauley can only act with the approval of council.

Kanawha Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit agreed with council members Friday and dismissed the lawsuit.

The judge had previously denied Pauley's request for an emergency injunction to stop members of council from hiring any employees until Tabit ruled on the issue.

The dispute stemmed from council's decision to hire Johnny Walker as street commissioner in 2013. Pauley thought Walker's pay was too high, and has continually tried to fire him, cut his pay or simply not sign his paychecks. Pauley filed a motion for an emergency injunction after council members held a special meeting several weeks ago to hire three temporary workers.

David Dawson, Pauley's attorney, has said that Pauley has historically acted as a strong mayor, making most of the decisions for the town. Pauley has been mayor 32 years.

Dawson was unable to provide any part of the town charter or any city ordinances that specifically say Marmet was set up with a strong-mayor form of government.

An armed robbery was reported at CVS Pharmacy on Oakwood Road in Charleston just after 8:30 p.m. Friday, according to a Kanawha County Metro 911 dispatcher.

Charleston police Sgt. J.A. Hunt said the suspect, a masked white man, made off with prescription drugs.

A dispatcher said there were no reports of injuries.

Charleston police are currently on scene.

The following crimes were reported to the Charleston Police Department between Sept. 10 and 16:

East District:

Lee Street East 1500 block, burglary, Sept. 10, noon.

Bowen Street 700 block, grand larceny, Sept. 10, 8:30 p.m.

Franklin Avenue 1600 block, malicious wounding, Sept. 11, 12:30 a.m.

Capitol Street 100 block, petit larceny, Sept. 11, 1:15 p.m.

Lee Street East 400 block, shoplifting, Sept. 11, 2:39 p.m.

Lee Street East 200 block, shoplifting, Sept. 11, 5:30 p.m.

Virginia Street East 800 block, robbery, Sept. 13, 1:30 a.m.

Smith Street 800 block, petit larceny, Sept. 13, 8 a.m.

Charleston Town Center, petit larceny, Sept. 13, 9 a.m.

Jackson Street 1500 block, burglary, Sept. 13, 9 p.m.

Lee Street East 1400 block, breaking and entering auto, Sept. 14, 8 a.m.

Lee Street East 200 block, shoplifting, Sept. 15, 5:34 p.m.

Dickinson Street/Washington Street, malicious wounding, Sept. 15, 8:20 p.m.

Washington Street East 1600 block, breaking and entering auto, Sept. 16, 3:52 a.m.

Washington Street East 1600 block, shoplifting, Sept. 16 3:52 a.m.

Dickinson Street 500 block, grand larceny, Sept. 16, 12:30 p.m.

Lee Street East 200 block, shoplifting, Sept. 16, 7:43 p.m.

South District:

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 5700 block, shoplifting, Sept. 11, 1:30 p.m.

Tennis Club Road 1500 block, petit larceny, Sept. 11, 3 p.m.

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 5600 block, petit larceny, Sept. 11, 6:30 p.m.

MacCorkle Avenue 6500 block, shoplifting, Sept. 11, 9 p.m.

Fledderjohn Road 1100 block, breaking and entering auto, Sept. 12, 6:30 p.m.

Venable Avenue Southeast 4700 block, burglary, Sept. 13, 10 a.m.

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 4000 block, shoplifting, Sept. 14, 4:20 p.m.

36th Street 300 block, petit larceny, Sept. 15, 12:50 p.m.

MacCorkle Avenue 3900 block, breaking and entering auto, Sept. 15, 1 p.m.

Fort Hill Drive and Cantley Drive, grand larceny auto, Sept. 15, 2 p.m.

Dorchester Road 1500 block, petit larceny, Sept. 15, 10 p.m.

MacCorkle Avenue Southeast 6500 block, petit larceny, Sept. 16, 11:30 a.m.

MacCorkle Avenue 6500 block, shoplifting, Sept. 16, 7:50 p.m.

West District:

Anaconda Avenue 800 block, burglary, Sept. 10, 6:50 a.m.

2nd Avenue 1600 block, petit larceny, Sept. 10, 9 a.m.

Maryland Avenue 200 block, burglary, Sept. 10, 11:30 a.m.

Avon Street 100 block, burglary, Sept. 10, 5:30 p.m.

Odell Avenue 1800 block, petit larceny, Sept. 11, 2 a.m.

Washington Street West 400 block, shoplifting, Sept. 11, 3:45 p.m.

Virginia Street West first block, robbery, Sept. 12, midnight.

Rayhill Drive 1700 block, burglary, Sept. 12, 9 a.m.

Vine Street first block, burglary, Sept. 13, 1:30 a.m.

Main Street 500 block, burglary, Sept. 13, 8:30 a.m.

Washington Street West 800 block, grand larceny auto, Sept. 14, 3:10 p.m.

Hazelwood Avenue 900 block, malicious wounding, Sept. 14, 7:15 p.m.

Hazelwood Avenue 900 block, robbery, Sept. 14, 7:15 p.m.

Delaware Avenue 500 block, shoplifting, Sept. 14, 9 p.m.

Rockaway Road 400 block, burglary, Sept. 15, 7 a.m.

Washington Street West 700 block, burglary, Sept. 15, 10:30 a.m.

7th Avenue 2400 block, failure to pay for gas, Sept. 15, 4 p.m.

28th Street West 200 block, domestic battery, Sept. 15, 4:45 p.m.

Roane Street 300 block, malicious wounding, Sept. 16, 4:30 p.m.

Last week the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals once again heard a case related to a man currently serving a life sentence after he admitted to killing his former girlfriend and wounding two men in 1988.

The case ultimately comes down to whether the Supreme Court upholds a 2014 decision by Special Judge James O. Holliday, who dismissed an indictment of Stephen Wayne Hatfield, now 65.

On Mother's Day, 1988, Hatfield murdered his ex-girlfriend, Tracey Andrews, and wounded her then-boyfriend, Dewey Meyers, and a bystander in a shooting rampage that traveled through Huntington and on to Chesapeake and Proctorville, Ohio.

The rampage ended when Hatfield was shot in the abdomen and leg in a shootout with police. While in the hospital, he unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide. Hatfield once again attempted suicide when he was transferred to jail to await trial.

The following year, Hatfield pleaded guilty to murder and two counts of attempted murder.

Two doctors, Herbert Haynes and Earnest Watkins, evaluated Hatfield's mental state after the suicide attempts, determining the man had suffered from major depression.

Hatfield described the month before the 1988 shooting as "a daze."

During his initial legal proceedings, the Court sought to determine whether Hatfield was competent to stand trial.

Hatfield, who entered a guilty plea, said he was competent, but ultimately changed his mind and appealed to the Supreme Court. His goal was to overturn his conviction based on his competency.

The high court sided with Hatfield, saying questions asked by then-Wayne County Circuit Judge Elliott "Spike" Maynard were inappropriate after the man's suicide attempts.

Since then the case has gone back and forth in the legal system, with the case being remanded and subsequently being appealed to higher courts.

In his 2014 decision, Holliday determined Hatfield's right to due process had been infringed in several ways.

"First by virtue of his constitutionally inadequate competency hearing, and second, by the Circuit Court's acceptance of (Hatfield's) guilty pleas and impositions of a life sentence in the face of uncontroverted evidence that (he) was not criminally responsible for his crimes," Holliday wrote.

Hatfield's attorney, Lonnie Simmons, noted on Wednesday that in the 27 years his client has been imprisoned several witnesses, including the initial doctors who examined him, had died and evidence had been destroyed.

"The issue here is not whether we could scrape together what evidence that the state hadn't destroyed intentionally, without notice to our client. All the physical evidence was destroyed except for the gun," Simmons said.

He said the initial notes written by two doctors who interviewed Hatfield after he murdered Andrews also were missing.

"We don't have their notes," Simmons said. "We don't have the basis."

Hatfield's defense is centered on whether he was mentally stable when he murdered Andrews.

But Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Thomas Plymale, who has appealed Holliday's order, told the justices that enough evidence still exists for new experts to use the notes written by Haynes and Watkins to determine his mental state.

"The idea that it's impossible to do that at this point is just simply not so," he said.

The Supreme Court did not rule on the case on Wednesday.

Reach Joel Ebert at 304-348-4843, joel.ebert@dailymailwv.com, or follow @joelebert29 on Twitter.

A judge refused to lower the bond of a man who allegedly sexually assaulted and tried to rob another man in Charleston.

Robert Eugene Pannell, 53, of St. Albans, is charged with kidnapping, first-degree sexual assault and first-degree robbery.

His bond is set at $100,000 and Kanawha Circuit Judge Tod Kaufman refused to lower it Monday.

Assistant Kanawha County prosecutor Tera Salango told Kaufman that Pannell could face a life sentence if convicted of the most recent charges because of his lengthy criminal history.

In August, police say Pannell allegedly threatened a man with a box cutter and told him to withdraw money from a SunTrust Bank ATM and give it to him. When the man couldn't get money out of the machine, Pannell allegedly grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him across the street to an exterior stairwell attached to St. Mark's United Methodist Church on Washington Street.

The man told police Pannell forced him to perform oral sex and intercourse as the box cutter was pressed against his throat.

Pannell has been held in the South Central Regional Jail since his arrest. His attorney, Justin Collin, said the bail should be lowered because he's lived in the area all his life. Salango said, though, that Pannell was living at a homeless shelter at the time the alleged crime occurred.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Police say two juveniles have been charged with causing significant damage to Morgantown High School.

Morgantown police say the juveniles entered the school on Sunday night. They were identified through a review of the school's video surveillance recordings.

Police said Monday in a news release that authorities believe damage to the school and school equipment will top $5,000. Details of the damage weren't immediately available.

Each juvenile was charged with entering without breaking and felony destruction of property.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Two Mexican men each face up to five years in prison after pleading guilty in West Virginia to conspiring to commit credit card fraud.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin says Marco Carillio, 22, and Luis Vazquez, 24, both of Sonora, Mexico, entered their pleas on Monday in U.S. District Court in Charleston.

Federal agents arrested the men on May 4 when they arrived at a Federal Express facility in Charleston to pick up a package containing 100 fraudulent credit cards.

A criminal complaint says Federal Express had intercepted the package on May 1 and turned it over to law enforcement.

Goodwin says Carillo and Vazquez admitted that they planned to buy electronic goods and gift cards with the cards.

Both men are scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 21.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A West Virginia man was charged with murder Monday in the shooting of another motorist on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania in what state police said appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.

John Wayne Strawser Jr., 38, of Terra Alta, West Virginia, is in jail in his home state, where he faces a separate murder charge in the slaying of a woman earlier this year.

The Pennsylvania complaint accuses Strawser of chasing down and shooting 28-year-old Timothy Davison, an apparent stranger from Poland, Maine, along I-81 in the predawn darkness of Jan. 4, 2014.

The case against Strawser is built on interviews with people who know him, cellphone records and physical evidence, Trooper Jason Cashara said in affidavit. A shell casing from the scene matched a casing from Strawser's .44-caliber lever-action pistol and his pickup truck had been painted a different color since the killing, he said.

Davison was driving home after visiting family members in Florida when the driver of a pickup truck started firing at him as the two vehicles crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania.

The truck rammed Davison's SUV, forcing it onto the snow-covered median. The driver circled back minutes later, as Davison was talking on the phone to a state police dispatcher, and shot him several times in the head, leg and foot before fleeing in the southbound lanes, the affidavit says. Davison died shortly afterward at York Hospital.

A major break in the investigation came from Jamie and Courtney Breese, a couple who described themselves as former friends of Strawser. They came forward in April after Strawser was charged with the second killing.

Before that, "they didn't think he was capable of doing this," Lt. Jonathan Mays, head of the criminal section at the Harrisburg state police barracks, said at a news briefing Monday.

The Breeses said they were traveling north on I-81 at around the same time and vicinity that Davison was killed and that Strawser had been threatening them in cellphone calls and text messages. The couple discussed the possibility that Strawser was looking for them and mistook Davison's silver Mitsubishi Montero for their silver Honda Pilot, Cashara wrote.

Franklin County District Attorney Matthew Fogal said there is strong evidence Strawser was stalking the couple on the night Davison was shot and that it is "fair to conclude that at least the initial attack by Strawser was specifically intended for someone else."

Strawser had relationships with numerous women, including the West Virginia woman he is charged with killing, and was very controlling in those relationships, Mays said.

"Once those other parties decided to go away from him, then he ratcheted up and we saw things like we saw in this case," he said.

Davison's mother said she was relieved that a suspect was in custody.

"Obviously, there's a sense of relief that they got the guy and he's not going to hurt anyone else, but sadness at why are we even going through this," Theresa Allocca, Davison's mother, told the Portland Press Herald. "There's also a little bit of anger and frustration that no one came forward until another person had to die."

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. (AP) - Six people have been charged in West Virginia with illegal cigarette trafficking.

U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld II announced the indictments Monday.

The defendants are Mohamed Abdo Elbarati, 30, of Winchester, Virginia; Farouk Mohamed Aldaylam, 28, of Queens Village, New York; Amir Mohamed Alsaidi, 37, of Baltimore; Fahd Hamood Aljahaf, 37, of Bronx, New York; and Galal Hameed Kassim, 29, and Muneer Kaid Khaled, 25, both of Brooklyn, New York.

All are charged with conspiracy. Elbarati, Aldaylam and Alsaidi also are charged with transportation of contraband cigarettes.

The indictment says Elbarati, owner of Smoke Palace in Winchester, bought millions of dollars worth of cigarettes from wholesalers and resold them to out-of-state smugglers. The cigarettes were processed and transported in West Virginia.

Federal funding for the state's first victimization survey will help victim advocates find out just how underreported sexual assault, domestic violence and other crimes are in West Virginia.

Sexual assault and domestic violence are historically underreported everywhere, but victim advocates don't know exactly how underreported the crimes are in West Virginia, where they say isolation could be exacerbating the problem.

The state Division of Justice and Community Services announced Monday it had received a $448,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department to fund a three-year study.

Researchers will ask West Virginians about whether they've been victimized, their willingness to ask law enforcement for help, their perceptions of the criminal justice system and community safety, and their knowledge of victim services and local crime policy, among other topics.

Victim advocates representing the state's domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions said they were looking forward to state-specific information on victimization, which is currently lacking.

Nancy Hoffman, state coordinator for the West Virginia Foundation for Rape Information and Services, said that they could use the data to modify services.

"When we first started doing this work years ago, a lot of our prevention work was focused on stranger danger," Hoffman said. "That's (when) the rapist or perpetrator is someone lurking in the bushes and assaults occurred at dark and it wasn't anyone you know. With data over the years, we found that most sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim knows - something like 75 to 85 percent - and many occur during the day ... so through data, we really learned how to direct and focus primary prevention efforts."

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that nearly two-thirds (63.7 percent) of women did not report rape, stalking or physical violence by an intimate partner. (The question was specifically asking about violence committed by intimate partners, not others, such as friends or strangers.) An even lower rate of men - 12.6 percent - reported the same crimes to police.

Victim advocates listed several characteristics of West Virginia that could make the state particularly vulnerable to underreporting.

Hoffman said that, while residents of all counties in the state can call a sexual assault hotline and be referred to a rape crisis center, numerous counties lack a physical center and the advocacy services that come with it.

"We just have limited dollars," Hoffman said. "That is the reality."

Joyce Yedlosky, team coordinator for the West Virginia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said the coalition covers all counties in the state, but said lack of public transportation can be a problem.

"People who are out in the most rural areas may have difficulty getting the services and help they might need," Yedlosky said.

Hoffman and Yedlosky both mentioned a lack of anonymity when reporting crime in rural areas.

Yedlosky said reporting being victimized could be especially "humiliating" in a small town.

"You might know or be related to many of the people who might respond," she said.

When perpetrators and authorities know each other well, that also could create bias, she said.

She said an officer might think something like: "Joe wouldn't do that. I know him."

"You might think the person isn't capable," she said.

Yedlosky said the rural attitude of "we make do" and "we take care of it ourselves" could also contribute to underreporting.

She said the attitude is: "You don't go to the police. You don't go to a shelter. You take care of it. You made your bed, you lie in it."

The Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center within the Office of Research and Strategic Planning at the Division of Justice and Community Services will conduct the survey, with help from West Virginia University's Research Center on Violence.

"This is an exciting opportunity to pursue research that promises to improve public safety in West Virginia," division Director Rick Staton said in a news release.

Dr. Stephen Haas, director of the Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center, said the survey would target all adults 18 and older statewide.

"Safeguards will be utilized to ensure confidentiality and that the respondents feel safe to talk," he said in a statement.

Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck @wvgazette.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.

Charleston man pleads guilty to drug charge

A Charleston man pleaded guilty in federal court to using a cell phone to deal cocaine and possession of marijuana for distribution, according to a news release sent Monday from the office of a United States attorney.

Gregory Woods, 38, admitted during his hearing that on June 8, 2011 he arranged to sell a confidential informant an ounce of cocaine through calls made on his cell phone, according to the release from the office of U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin. The confidential informant went to Woods' home in Charleston and bought the drug. Officers then executed a search warrant at the home on Early Street and found 13.9 grams of cocaine, 176 grams of marijuana, and a gun.

Woods faces up to nine years imprisonment when he is sentenced on Jan. 4, 2016.