Murder Trial Begins, Evidence Will Include Gun Inmate in Work Crew Found on Route 6 Median

CCB MEDIA PHOTO The trial of Quoizel Wilson began Monday, May 4, in Barnstable Superior Court.

CCB MEDIA PHOTOS
The trial of Quoizel Wilson began Monday, May 4, in Barnstable Superior Court.

BARNSTABLE – The murder trial of Quoizel Wilson began yesterday at Barnstable Superior Court with jury empanelment.

Wilson is accused of killing Trudie Hall of Nantucket on July 27, 2010. In addition to murder, he is being charged with assault and battery with a firearm and improper disposal of a body.

Police say Hall was pregnant with his child.

Bits and pieces of what is to come in the trial came out during motions before Superior Judge Gary A. Nickerson by defense attorney Robert J. Galibois and First Assistant District Attorney Michael A. Trudeau.

Galibois said he was only recently given details of evidence from the district attorney’s office of a gun found by an inmate in a Barnstable County Sheriff’s work crew on the Route 6 median. The gun was allegedly found five days after Hall was reported missing, Galibois said.

Other evidence at trial will focus on cell phone records of Wilson and Hall during the three days after Hall was reported missing.

Trudeau said he would rely on rulings made in the recent Aaron Hernandez murder trial in terms of the admissibility of the cell phone evidence.

CCB MEDIA PHOTO Quoizel Wilson, who is accused of murdering Trudie Hall in 2010, arrives at Barnstable Superior Court.

Quoizel Wilson, who is accused of murdering Trudie Hall in 2010, arrives at Barnstable Superior Court.

Nickerson said the detailed data on cell phone technology looked to him like a professor’s presentation to students. “I really don’t see where the whole thing’s admissible,” he said.

Galibois said he would dispute some of the conclusions drawn by the prosecutor through the cell phone evidence.

The witness list included more than 70 people, including two men who were said to be married to Hall in what police say appears to have been an immigration scam.

The list also includes Wilson’s wife Donna McKenzie Wilson. Defense Attorney Galibois said he intends to produce evidence that was discovered when McKenzie Wilson’s car was sold and police used a cadaver-sniffing dog to check the car. The dog had a “hit” on the car’s trunk and blood found there was tested but it was non-human, Galibois said.

Galibois asked Judge Nickerson to restrict the jury’s viewing of photos of Hall’s skeletal remains that were found two years after her disappearance in woods off Hayway Road in Falmouth.

The photos show not only Hall’s skeleton, but also fetal bones.

Nickerson said he did not find the photos to be any worse than the skeleton someone might see in a doctor’s office. “I don’t see anything gruesome here,” Nickerson said.

Nickerson said he would rule on the photos on a case by case basis.

But in questioning the jurors for the empanelment, Nickerson asked them whether it would affect their judgment of the case to know that the murdered woman was pregnant. That information gave many potential jurors pause.

The other two questions Nickerson asked potential jurors specific to this case was whether they had any bias against African-Americans, since the defendant is an African-American. Jurors answered quickly that they were not biased, though one mentioned recent news about protests across the country.

The other question was whether potential jurors had been exposed to media about the case. Most said they had heard of it.

In speaking with the judge, Galibois said this case is likely to be more emotional than most. “While every murder case is emotional. This one is going to be more emotional,” he said.

A couple of days into the trial, jurors will be taken on a viewing to five sites related to the case: the West Yarmouth hotel where Hall was reported missing, the exit 6 commuter lot where her car was found, an area off Service Road where investigators searched for her body, woods off Hayway Road in Falmouth where she was found, and Wilson’s former home on Great Marsh Road in Centerville.

The trial is expected to take two weeks.

By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com News Editor



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