Groves Murder Trial Set for Later This Month
LOCK HAVEN—A high-profile Clinton County murder trial is set to begin later this month.
A final pre-trial hearing was held Friday morning in the case of Loyd Groves, 69, accused of killing Katherine “Kathy” Dolan Heckel of Lock Haven in 1991. Attorneys for the two sides met with presiding Senior Judge Kenneth Brown of Lycoming County for half an hour.
Lead prosecutor/senior deputy state attorney general Daniel Dye asked Judge Brown to reconsider the court’s decision to reject a Commonwealth request for inclusion of some witness hearsay evidence into the trial. Judge Brown indicated he would rule on the request in a few days.
Judge Brown spent some time telling the prosecutors and defense attorneys David Lindsay and George Lepley how he will proceed with the jury selection process scheduled to begin on Monday, June 18. Attorneys in the case then went with Judge Brown to visit a third floor room in the courthouse where prospective jurors will be interviewed individually.
Court administrator Don Powers later said five days have been set up the week of June 18, some 60 different prospective jurors notified to report each day, Monday through Friday, for possible inclusion on the jury. Powers said 600 letters were originally mailed out in the quest to ultimately find a jury of twelve members and two alternates. The Groves trial is to begin a week later on June 25.
Groves was present for the Friday hearing and sat passively behind his counsel, maintaining a stoic demeanor and not looking about as the proceeding went on. Several members of the Heckel family were also present in the court room.
The trial has been on-again-off-again in recent years. The case had been scheduled for trial in the fall of 2015 but was postponed over discovery issues. The trial was rescheduled for November of last year but was delayed due to health issues on the part of the defendant.
Groves had been arrested in January of 2015 following a statewide investigating grand jury report based on a renewed probe conducted by state troopers Curtis Confer and Michael Hutson and FBI special agent Kyle Moore. Groves has been held at the Clinton County Correctional Facility without bail since his 2015 arrest.
