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Judge seals indictment until arraignment in Lincoln murder case

July 27, 2008|BOBBIE CURD

STANFORD - As a Lincoln County grand jury returned indictments Friday, murder suspect Jamarkos Campbell's name was still withheld by authorities.

Commonwealth's Attorney Eddy Montgomery told the judge that the jury requested the indictment be sealed.

Campbell, 23, of Richmond was arrested in April and charged in the 2002 murders of Bo Upton and Ryan Shangraw, who were found shot to death inside Shangraw's trailer in the Hubble community.

Because Campbell was a juvenile when the murders occurred, authorities decline to release his name. The Advocate-Messenger has confirmed his identity through other sources.

On July 18, Montgomery told The Advocate he was preparing to take the six-year-old murder case before the grand jury Friday. He said it was possible that Campbell could be arraigned in Lincoln Circuit Court immediately following the indictment.

As television cameras and reporters set up in Circuit Judge Jeffrey Burdette's courtroom, the commonwealth met in private chambers before the grand jury returned. A paralegal with Montgomery's office continued to relay information to the media about what to expect for an announcement.

Just as the grand jury was about to return, a photocopied page of the Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS 610.015) was handed out to the media, highlighting the procedure of releasing the records of a child who is being tried as an adult.

The law states, "Records, limited to the records of the present case in which the child has been charged, relating to a child charged under this section, shall not be made public until after the child has been indicted and arraigned."

Campbell is serving a two-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in May to bringing cocaine into the Madison County Detention Center.

Previously held in the Lincoln County Regional Jail on the murder charge, Campbell was transferred recently to the Daviess County Detention Center to serve his two-year sentence for the Madison County conviction, a deputy there said.

Friday's indictment comes after Campbell's case was not presented to two previous grand juries that have convened since his arrest in the murder case.

The delay resulted in his case being discharged, because he was not indicted within 60 days of his arrest, and his subsequent release from the Lincoln County Regional Jail to begin serving time on the Madison County cocaine charge.

An arraignment date on the sealed indictment handed up Friday has not been set.

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