WURTLAND, Ky. — The alleged murderer of former Chimacum resident Chadd E. Miller won’t stand trial until next year.
Until then, unless he can raise all of $250,000 cash bail, Beryl Smith will continue living with a half-dozen other inmates in a tiny, windowless cell, a jail deputy said Tuesday.
Greenup County Circuit Court Clerk Debbie Robinson said a trial date of Jan. 9 has been set for Smith in the Aug. 7 shooting of Miller, 27.
When killed, Miller was with Smith’s former girlfriend Amber Nolan, 33, at the girlfriend’s home in Wurtland.
“It’s the closest we could get a jury trial,” Robinson said Monday.
Law enforcement authorities said Miller had met Nolan on the social networking site MySpace a couple of months earlier before making the 2,500-mile trip by Greyhound bus to live with her in Wurtland, an Ohio River town of about 1,000.
The 2000 Chimacum High School graduate and father of an elementary school-age son died 11 days after he arrived in Kentucky, according to the Ashland (Ky.) Independent.
Pleaded not guilty
Smith has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, first-degree burglary, first-degree wanton endangerment and fourth-degree assault.
He was arrested without incident shortly after 3 a.m. Aug. 7, standing calmly in the street in front of Nolan’s home holding the 9 mm handgun he allegedly used in the shooting, authorities said.
Smith, who has a child in common with Nolan, is being held in the Greenup County Detention Center in a multiple-cell living unit of fewer than 150 square feet with about six or seven other prisoners, Sheriff’s Deputy Michelle Cox said Tuesday.
“It contains people like him to keep him from getting hurt,” Cox said.
The inmates never go outside.
“It does not give them very much free reign, that’s for sure. Their recreation area is in front of the control booth where we can see them.”
Cox has talked with Smith, she said.
“He’s been fairly quiet; he’s been keeping to himself,” she said.
“You would never know that something like that had gone on in his head.”
Smith would face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.