A Lake Superior Court judge denied a motion Thursday to kick James McGhee’s lawyer off his murder case.
McGhee, 38, of Hammond was charged in August with murder in the death of his girlfriend, Sidne-Nichole Buchanan, 27, of Gary, who went missing since they both went to a Wiz Kalifa concert July 27 at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheater in Tinley Park, Illinois, court filings say.
Her body was found about a month later in the Thornton-Lansing Road Nature Preserve in Cook County, Illinois.
McGhee’s attorney, Jamise Perkins, had represented a main witness in the case on two pending cases and two prior ones, Lake County Prosecutor Eric Randall said.
The witness had not agreed to waive attorney-client privilege, which could complicate his testimony in McGhee’s trial, he said. Prosecutors filed a motion to disqualify Perkins Thursday, according to online filings.
As a compromise, Randall suggested another attorney could question the witness, while Perkins handle the rest of McGhee’s defense.
Perkins said the cases were unrelated to McGhee’s charges - involving lower level offenses - saying she withdrew from the witness’ current cases after McGhee’s murder charges were filed.
She and the witness already had a breakdown in their attorney-client relationship, including halted communication and multiple failures to appear in court, Perkins said.
‘There is no confidential information I would possess,” she said.
Having McGhee get a new lawyer less than two weeks before his trial would be “unfairly prejudicial” to his case, she argued.
If he’s required to get new counsel, then he’s certainly not going to be able to proceed to trial on Nov. 18,” Perkins said.
Judge Clarence Murray denied the state’s request. McGhee’s pretrial hearing is set for Nov. 14.
After the July concert, authorities believe McGhee took Buchanan back to his apartment at the Concord Commons in the 1900 block of Burr Street in Gary where he beat her to death sometime before sunrise, charging documents state.
Buchanan’s mother, Kaneka Turner, went to police, concerned she hadn’t heard from her daughter since the concert while her active social media feeds went silent.
The next day, McGhee went to Hammond to pick up the witness, driving on Interstate 80/94 toward Illinois to a forest preserve off Illinois 394’s Danville exit where McGhee looked for a place to take the body, records state.
McGhee claimed he “messed up” after finding a picture of Buchanan in a sex act with another man on her phone and wanted to kill himself, the man said via court records.
He then took the witness back to his Gary apartment, which was “in a state of disarray” with furniture knocked over and what looked like blood on mattresses in both bedrooms, documents state. When asked multiple times, the man refused to help clean the apartment and went outside, waiting for McGhee to exit.
They drove back to the forest preserve were McGhee took Buchanan’s body into the woods, while the man waited in the car, records state. On the way, he showed the witness cellphone photos of a woman he believed was Buchanan who appeared to have been beaten and also saw Buchanan’s ID in the car, records state.
The man later led police to the wooded preserve between where Buchanan’s body was found behind a row of trees and bushes, documents state. He has been given immunity for his cooperation with Lake County prosecutors.
McGhee is on probation for another case, where he was charged with beating a Merrillville woman, his then-girlfriend, who was pregnant with quadruplets on Feb. 20, 2017, killing three of the fetuses, Indiana court documents state.
Perkins represented McGhee in the prior case, helping to broker the three-year probation deal.
Judge denies request to remove lawyer in Hammond man’s murder case
