SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — Wesley Hadsell, the man accused of killing his adopted stepdaughter back in 2015 and leaving her body in Southampton County, will now go to trial in March 2021.
The trial was scheduled to start in September 2020, but was pushed back on Thursday in a pretrial hearing due to COVID-19-related trial issues. However, he is expected to be back in court Sept. 29 for a full day of motions.
Hadsell’s murder trial will now be March 1-26.
In court Thursday morning, attorneys agreed having their first big trial since the pandemic in just a few months wasn’t feasible.
They raised concerns about witnesses coming from other states, and even some having to fly.
There were also worries about jury attentiveness and the space required for everyone to fit in the courtroom while social distancing.
Hadsell’s last trial in February was declared a mistrial, after he walked back an agreement with the prosecution about what parts of his criminal record would be allowed to be brought up during the trial.
18-year-old AJ Hadsell vanished while she was home in Norfolk on spring break in March 2015, and investigators found her body a month later behind an abandoned home in Southampton County, nearly 50 miles away.
A medical examiner determined she died as a result of homicidal violence and acute heroin poisoning, and Wesley Hadsell was charged with her murder three years later.
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