WESTON, W.Va. — Next month’s trial of a Lewis County woman charged in the 2011 death of her 3-year-old daughter has been postponed until October.
The defense team for Lena Marie Lunsford-Conaway, 34, requested extra preparation time in a motion Judge Jake Reger accepted.
Jury selection was rescheduled for Oct. 10 with the trial beginning two days later.
The defense, consisting of Clarksburg-based attorney Tom Dyer and Clay County-based attorney Barbara Harmon-Schamberger, said the volume and complexity of the case required additional time for discovery.
Lunsford-Conaway is accused of striking her daughter Aliayah Lunsford with a blunt object in the early hours of Sept. 24, 2011 inside their Bendale home in Lewis County. She is accused of failing to provide medical attention and forcing others to withhold medical attention. The criminal complaint alleges Lunsford-Conaway fabricated a story and disposed of the body in a wooded area.
She is charged with murder of a child by parent by failure to provide necessities, death of a child by parent by child abuse, child abuse resulting in injury, and concealment of a dead body.
A conviction on the murder charge carries a life sentence.
Dyer joined the defense team March 14. Harmon-Schamberger had previously expressed to Reger her interest in postponing the trial’s start date.
Lunsford-Conaway previously resided in Pinellas County, Fla.
The trial originally was set to begin the week of June 19.