Jury selection again scheduled in Alexander trial

Pre-trial motions are scheduled to be heard Monday and jury selection is set for Dec. 1-4 in the second-degree murder case against Anna Alexander.

Alexander is charged with killing her husband, Austin, on April 21, 2007.

He was shot in the driveway of his home just outside Eunice, shortly after an argument with his wife, according to evidence in the case file.

Before going outside he threatened his wife, according to bail hearing testimony.

Anna Alexander has been free, though restricted to a residence, on $150,000 bail since May 2007.

During that bail hearing, one of her granddaughters, LaShonda Venezia, testified that when she arrived at the house the couple was arguing in an upstairs room.

When they came downstairs, he said “I’ll kill you with a shovel” if she didn’t drop the matter, Venezia testified.

She told the court the victim then went outside and that her grandmother went back into her room.

Anna Alexander subsequently went outside. Venezia said she heard a shot a few minutes later and then her grandmother came back in and said “I shot him” and called the police.

Police testified that the husband was shot while standing in front of a truck in the driveway. The file indicates a shovel was found next to his body. He had been shot once.

The office testified Anna Alexander said she shot him with a .380 caliber pistol found at the scene.

Investigators subsequently recovered in a bedroom a box of ammunition, an empty magazine and an empty box that the gun was in when purchased. According to testimony, six rounds were missing from the ammunition box.

Officers testified that four rounds were in the magazine of the handgun and one was jammed in the slide. A shell casing was recovered though the spent bullet was not.

Pre-trial motions were supposed to have been heard in the case last October but the assistant district attorney assigned the case had resigned and a new one had not yet been appointed.

On Oct. 26, 2007, Judge Donald Hebert granted a motion to continue the case to Feb. 26, 2008. Assistant DA Shaunn Cailier-Harden had been assigned the matter. Defense attorney Clay LeJeune did not object to the continuance, according to the case file.

At the same time, jury selection was set for April 3, 2008, but both sides filed in April to continue the matter.

Hebert agreed, setting jury selection for Aug. 6. But on July 23, LeJeune moved to continue and the matter was set for the current schedule.

Some of the continuances haves been due to the change in prosecutors, some due to conflicts in LeJeune’s court schedule, the file indicates.

In July, preparing for the then-scheduled Aug. 28 trial date, the prosecution issued subpoenas for 16 witnesses it advised the defense it intended to call and had also issued one for telephone company records.

Those records’ role in the prosecution’s case was not specified.

The case file does not indicate that the defense has yet prepared a witness list.