The long-delayed case of the woman who admitted to killing Charlottesville author and arts promoter Matthew Farrell moved one step closer to a resolution Monday as her defense team promised a final delay.
Nearly six months after learning that Shawna Murphy was declared sufficiently competent to stand trial and nearly two years after Farrell’s killing, her defense team asked the court for one more month to consider the case after a new psychiatric report arrived Friday.
“We’re still digesting,” said defense lawyer Nicholas Reppucci.
Reppucci, who recently took the helm of the local public defender’s office, seemed to acknowledge that his office was testing the judge’s patience by requesting an additional status hearing in such a long-running case.
“One last status,” promised Reppucci.
Prosecutor Holly Vradenburgh did not object, and Judge Areshini Pather approved.
Court documents paint a grim picture leading up to the Oct. 25, 2022, discovery of Farrell’s body in his residence in the 2100 block of Stony Point Road in Albemarle County just northeast of the city.
Police said that Murphy called 911 to report that she had just shot the 53-year-old Farrell. While Murphy told first responders that Farrell was trying to kill her, physical evidence showed instead that Farrell had been killed in bed with a single gunshot to the back of his head.
Signs that Murphy was not mentally well were evident immediately. For starters, she had been found livestreaming when officers responded, and at least one of her social media posts seemed to presage the crime.
“I got an A in Acting 1 in college for performing this scene,” Murphy wrote atop a movie clip she publicly posted on Facebook roughly 28 hours before calling 911.
It was a scene from the 1996 film “Freeway,” in which Reese Witherspoon’s character kills Kiefer Sutherland’s character with a gunshot to the back of the head.
“On the face of it, it looks really bad,” veteran criminal defense attorney Scott Goodman told The Daily Progress.
That is why, Goodman said, Murphy’s lawyers are doing their best to explore mental health defenses. The report received Friday is sealed from public view, but it would contain information about Murphy’s sanity at the time of the killing, according to discussions in Albemarle Juvenile & Domestic Relations court where the case has been heard.
“In a homicide, these are the kinds of defenses that an attorney has to explore,” said Goodman. “He wants to be able to present the best possible argument to the commonwealth as to why they should see things his way, that this is something other than an intentional killing, a murder.”
After her arrest on a charge of second degree murder, Murphy called The Daily Progress to allege that more than a dozen women had been buried on Farrell’s property. No such evidence has emerged. Without seeing the latest report, Goodman said, he can’t predict whether an insanity defense is an option.
Unlike some earlier court appearances in which Murphy would slump in her chair and stare downward, she sat erect Monday in her shackles and the red jumpsuit that is the women’s uniform at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Murphy, now 40, returned to this jail in February after about a year of in-patient treatment at Western State Hospital, a public mental facility in Staunton.
As for Farrell, he found fame in the early 1990s by launching “Let’s Get Lost,” the Charlottesville area’s first show on public access television, a cable channel reserved for local creativity. Farrell offered a curated view of visual and literary artists plus musicians including a then-fledgling musical group that would eventually achieve international success, the Dave Matthews Band. Farrell later wrote an epic poem and a pair of novels while running a small publishing house, before he retreated from public view around the turn of the century.
Property records show that Farrell purchased his Albemarle County house in late 2005. Friends say that after developing a relationship with Murphy, he let her live with him but came to regret the arrangement.
“Farrell had asked me a few times to help him find a place for Shawna to live, as he didn’t want her to be homeless,” friend Jamie Dyer told The Progress. “It’s my life’s regret that I was in the midst of my own personal chaos and wasn’t able to hear him or help him.”
What’s promised to be Murphy’s final status hearing is slated for Sept. 16.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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