New trial date set in high-profile trooper murder case; motion to move trial to McDowell County denied

Judge Joshua Butcher denied a defense motion to relocate the trial of Timothy Kennedy Jr., the Matewan man charged with murdering West Virginia State Police Sgt. Cory Maynard, to McDowell County, setting instead a new trial date of May 4 in Mingo County Circuit Court, with jury selection scheduled to begin April 27.

Kennedy, 32, faces a five-count indictment handed down by a Mingo County grand jury in January 2024, including first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, disarming a law enforcement officer, and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. Prosecutors say he ambushed Sgt. Maynard and other troopers in June 2023 in the Beech Creek area of Mingo County while they were responding to an earlier shooting. Maynard was shot multiple times and beaten with a rifle. Kennedy then fled the scene, triggering a large-scale, multi-county manhunt that stretched for hours and, at its peak, halted high school graduations across the region. Benjamin Baldwin, the victim in the initial shooting that had drawn troopers to Beech Creek, was left critically injured.

The defense had argued for a McDowell County venue based on a survey of more than 300 potential Mingo County jurors that found 75 percent had prior knowledge of the trooper's murder and 86 percent had already formed the opinion that Kennedy was guilty. Those figures formed the core of defense counsel's pretrial publicity argument. Butcher ultimately declined to move the case, a ruling that ends any immediate prospect of McDowell County hosting the proceedings.

For McDowell, the motion's denial is no small footnote. Had the transfer been granted, the county would have faced substantial logistical demands: expanded courthouse security, sheriff's office coordination for a high-profile defendant, and the strain on local lodging and court staff that accompanies any lengthy murder trial imported from outside the county. The filing of the venue motion signals that defense teams continue to view McDowell County's jury pool as a viable alternative to counties saturated with pretrial coverage of major crimes, a dynamic worth monitoring as high-profile cases elsewhere in southern West Virginia move toward trial.

The Kennedy case has already accumulated a long procedural record. The most recent delay came during a prior attempt to seat a jury in December 2025, when Butcher declared a mistrial on the fourth day of jury selection after juror misconduct surfaced before opening arguments could begin. Prosecutors have since moved quickly to rebuild the case for trial, issuing 33 subpoenas to expected witnesses that include Baldwin, various law enforcement officers, the deputy chief state medical examiner, and an FBI digital forensics specialist.

With a May 4 start date now locked in, attention turns to whether the expanded jury pool Butcher convened in December, drawing roughly twice the normal number of candidates, will yield a seated jury in Mingo County or whether the pretrial publicity concerns the defense raised will resurface during voir dire, which begins the week of April 27.