“The last call (Gilley) made was to McCloud, but he denied knowing her whereabouts when we called him,” he told Judge Lewis.
A cell phone search indicates the duo traveled together to Dothan, but Gilley had wanted him to drive her to Sneads, Florida where her male friend resides, Herring testified.
He believes that McCloud killed Gilley within a few hours of her abduction, likely because she refused to have sex with him.
McCloud conducted multiple searches on his electronic devices about how to eradicate fingerprints from guns, he said during the two-hour hearing.
He also asked about the credibility of witnesses, some of them felons, and insisted that he be provided with all the evidence that investigators amassed.
Wadsworth also questioned if Gilley had been kidnapped or had gone with McCloud voluntary and, indicating he hopes a grand jury will indict on Felony Murder—not Capital Murder---charges.
However, Wadsworth and co-counsel Amy Cobb Smith had no other expectation of the hearing’s outcome, planning a more vigorous defense during the trial that prosecutors don’t anticipate until at least 2025.
Houston County District Attorney Russ Goodman is confident McCloud, 33, will ultimately be convicted and, if that happens, plans to seek the death penalty.
According to records, McCloud has a 15-year adult criminal record that includes other sex arrests and accusations that, as a registered sex offender, he resided too close to an Abbeville, Alabama, school.
McCloud faces two counts of Capital Murder, one based upon allegations that he kidnapped Gilley and the other because he is accused of killing two people---that includes the unborn child—during a single criminal act.
A judge ruled Friday that evidence Marquis McCloud killed a pregnant Florida Panhandle teen is compelling enough to send his Capital Murder cases to a South Alabama grand jury.
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