By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
A gun that was found more than a year after a fatal shooting in Glasgow is still in the process of being examined for any potential evidence by state crime lab facilities.
It remains unclear as to whether this firearm actually has any connection to the February 2023 incident that left 35-year-old Roger Noland of Scottsville dead and James Edward Campbell, now 48, charged with murder.
Noland was pronounced deceased at T.J. Samson Community Hospital after being transported there – less than a mile away from where the shooting occurred outside the apartment where Campbell was living – by ambulance. Noland and his fiancee, Felicia Nelson, with whom Campbell has two children, had come to Glasgow to bring Campbell and Nelson’s children to visit with their father. Those children were inside the apartment, and Noland, Nelson and a male child were in a vehicle about to leave when a verbal dispute began that led to a confrontation outside the vehicle and, ultimately, Noland’s death. Campbell also faces two counts of wanton endangerment due to the proximity of Nelson and her son to the situation.
According to previous court testimony, after Noland was injured, he returned to the vehicle and was throwing things.
The gun from which the fatal shot was fired has been in evidence already and is not the one in question at the lab. That latter one was found in mid-March of this year in the vicinity of where the shooting took place but at the opposite end of the parking lot under a storage shed, prosecutors have told Glasgow News 1.
The case had been set for trial in September, but the trial was removed from the docket indefinitely after the weapon was found and the timeline for getting lab results was expected to be lengthy and uncertain.
On Monday in Barren Circuit Court, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Resa Gardner provided a status update.
“It’s my understanding, from what I can tell, that part of those results are back with regard to fingerprints,” she said. “Nothing was found.”
She said that at this point, they’re waiting to find out whether the analyst could find any biological specimens on it that could be further tested for DNA, for example.
“That’s not been completed yet,” Gardner said.
She and Campbell’s attorney, Johnny Bell, had conferred before the proceeding of less than 2 minutes, and they had arrived at a suggested date for a new pretrial conference – Jan. 27.
“I think we should have – I would hope we would have an answer at that time whether or not there was anything found on the weapon itself that would require further testing,” Gardner said.
With that, the next date was confirmed by Circuit Judge John T. Alexander, and the proceeding concluded.
