WILLIAMSON, W.Va. — Testimony is underway in the trial of the man charged with shooting and killing a state police trooper in June 2023.
Timothy Kennedy, 32, is on trial in Mingo County Circuit Court.
Prosecutors allege Kennedy ambushed Sgt. Cory Maynard on June 2, 2023, when Maynard was responding to a shooting call involving Kennedy in the Beech Creek area
In Monday’s opening statement, according to WCHS-TV reporter Bob Aaron, Mingo County Prosecutor Brock Mounts told the jury Kennedy warned that if police showed up “there was going to be a war.”
Mounts told the jury the trial is about choices and deadly consequences.
Defense attorneys did not deny the shooting in their opening statement. They told the jury the first shooting Kennedy was involved in that day was a self-defense shooting and when Maynard and other police responded Kennedy was hallucinating on meth.
Kennedy faces charges of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, disarming a law enforcement officer, and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.
A 12-member jury and four alternates will continue to hear testimony Monday afternoon.
The defense tried to stop the trial from being held in Mingo County in court filings with the state Supreme Court Friday. The High Court refused the motion for a stay in a brief order entered Monday morning.