PORT ANGELES — A status hearing for Bobby J. Smith, a Port Angeles man charged with first-degree murder for the shooting death of his next door neighbor in June 2011, has been postponed by two weeks to give lawyers more time to interview witnesses.
Smith, 60, is scheduled to go to trial June 10, nearly two years after he allegedly shot and killed 63-year-old Robert Fowler with a 45.-caliber pistol at Smith’s home on Vashon Avenue.
Defense attorney Harry Gasnick of Clallam Public Defender and Clallam County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney John Troberg told Superior Court Judge George L. Wood on Friday that they needed “additional time to conduct interviews with expert witnesses,” Troberg said Friday.
Wood reset the status conference for April 26.
Smith is being held in the Clallam County jail on $1 million bond. His trial has been postponed several times because of delays in the forensic investigation and psychological evaluations.
Smith, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, has been found competent to stand trial.
When the trial was moved from February to its current date, Gasnick assured Judge S. Brooke Taylor that the latest delay would be the last.
Port Angeles police said Smith shot Fowler several times until Fowler stopped moving on his living room floor.
Smith told investigators that he shot Fowler in self-defense.
Smith was not charged until a three-month crime lab investigation had been completed.
By that time, Smith had moved to Amarillo, Texas, where Port Angeles police served an arrest warrant in October 2011.