By TAMMIE TOLER
Princeton Times
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PRINCETON — Johnny Midkiff II’s BlackBerry could hold key evidence in his fatal shooting, and the man accused of his murder wants the chance to find out.
Monday, attorneys for Harvey Lee Henley, 34, asked Circuit Judge William Sadler to delay his first-degree murder trial, giving authorities enough time to crack a code on the password-protected phone.
Henley, of Princeton, was previously set to stand trial on Aug. 31 for the death of Johnny Midkiff II, 33, of Lashmeet. The state argues the killing was premeditated murder, while the defense intends to tell the jury that Midkiff died because Henley feared for his own life if he didn’t shoot first.
Sadler continued the case until Sept. 28, in the wake of defense requests for a psychiatric evaluation and a review of the evidence on the victim’s cell phone.
“We worked real hard to get this case ready for Aug. 31,” defense counsel William Flanigan said alongside Henley and co-counsel Ryan Flanigan.
He cited “a couple” of things that delayed the defense case, referring to testing he requested on behalf of his client and the review of BlackBerry’s messages.
“I doubt any of them will be ready,” Flanigan said, referring to the outstanding pieces of evidence.
Mercer County’s Assistant Prosecuting Attorney George Sitler said the phone had been mailed out on “overnight” delivery Friday, Aug. 20. While local investigators could have examined the phone the night Midkiff was killed or any time in the interim, Sitler said the phone was protected via password and that only Midkiff knew the secret combination to open the phone’s records.
Midkiff died of a single gunshot wound to the head on Feb. 9, while he sat behind the wheel of his black Hummer along West Virginia Route 10 in the Lashmeet area. Henley was charged with murder the night of the shooting, after witnesses identified him as the assailant and investigators located him in the vicinity of the nearby L & M Market.
Henley reportedly confessed to Mercer County Sheriff’s Department Maj. D.B. Bailey, who testified last week that the defendant told him he only fired at Midkiff after a confrontational verbal exchange and a movement that made Henley believe Midkiff was reaching for a gun.
There was a history of violence, alleged stalking and reports of harassment between the two men, which was propelled by a romantic relationship between Midkiff and Henley’s estranged 32-year-old wife.
Police reports were filed by and against each man prior to Midkiff’s shooting. Henley previously alleged that Midkiff aimed a loaded gun at him and fired in his direction outside the Princeton Senior High School football field house last January and occasionally followed him to work in Blacksburg, Va. Meanwhile, Midkiff and Henley’s wife alleged that the accused confronted them in person one night after finding them together inside a vehicle and that he attempted to run them off of the road and force them into a wreck on another instance.
Flanigan has repeatedly asserted that Henley was the one being “hunted” by Midkiff and that his client only used deadly force under the belief that he either had to shoot Midkiff or face death himself.
That fear was fueled, Flanigan said, by the knowledge that Midkiff shot and killed his own wife in the summer of 2009, when Midkiff told authorities he accidentally fired a bullet and fatally wounded Lorrie N. Midkiff in the chest while cleaning a gun.
Authorities investigated her death as “suspicious” upon its report, and the case was presented before the Mercer County Grand Jury. Johnny Midkiff II was never charged with a crime, a point Sitler has previously emphasized before the court.
Flanigan countered that official charges mattered little when Henley faced Midkiff on foot on a dark, snowy night, near the victim’s house and family’s support in February.
— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.
