Baseball murder will head to trial
By Nick Hiltunen
Published in News on July 14, 2009 1:49 PM
A Goldsboro man pleaded not guilty Monday to killing a neighbor after an argument over an accident in a youth baseball game.
Goldsboro police charged Timothy Tramel Vaughn, 37, of East Walnut Street in June 2008 with the murder of James Anwar Brewington, 29.
Jury selection was still taking place late Monday afternoon as both Vaughn's defense attorney and prosecutors interviewed potential jurors.
Jury selection and other matters at trial were expected to continue this morning.
Police said Vaughn started arguing with Brewington after Vaughn's son accidentally struck Brewington's son with an aluminum baseball bat.
Both Brewington and Vaughn's sons had been playing a game of baseball in a yard near the intersection of Waters and East Holly streets on June 14, 2008, police said.
Investigators said Vaughn's son called his father, the defendant, who came to the site of the game.
That led to an argument between the two fathers, culminating in the shooting of Brewington by Vaughn, police allege.
Visiting Judge Phyllis Gorham presided over the case. Winterville-based attorney James Antinore represented Vaughn, and Assistant District Attorney Matt Delbridge represented the state.
Both sides asked potential jurors the typical questions asked of those serving for jury duty.
Delbridge and Antinore asked people in the jury pool if they could be impartial in deciding the case, or if they had any pre-conceived notions about the defendants or charges.
After the defense and the state agree on 14 people for the jury, the trial will begin.
Two of the 14 people selected are alternates, who would serve in case another juror has to be dismissed for some reason.
The baseball game on June 14, 2008, was described as a small game with less than 10 children participating.
"They were just in the yard playing," Investigator Dwayne Dean Dean said at the time. "One of the children was ... hit in the head with a metal baseball bat, accidentally, and that was the catalyst for all this."