Following pre-trial motion hearing, Hamby trial set for July

A judge Wednesday did not rule on two pretrial motions in the case of a Waynesboro woman accused of killing her boyfriend.

Eva E. Hamby, 50, was charged in November with second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Jeffrey Allen Gischel, 45, in a third-floor Holly House apartment on the 700 block of King Avenue.

Defense attorney Dana Cormier filed motions in April targeting the character and criminal histories of prosecution witnesses. He said Wednesday that prosecutors have been helpful in providing him with files.

Cormier and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Ledbetter briefly argued about expert testimony from Medical Examiner James Fulcher.

Cormier argued to prevent Fulcher from expressing opinions as to whether injuries were self-inflicted.

“The [trial] issue will be whether the wound was self-inflicted or not,” he said.

Ledbetter said Fulcher would only testify that a knife had been thrust back and forth to the lung and heart in a manner “inconsistent” with a self-inflicted wound.

Judge Humes J. Franklin said he would rule on such testimony at trial, if necessary.

Cormier’s motion to obtain witness information, which thus far has not required a court order, requests details “affecting the credibility of any prosecution witness.”

A key prosecution witness at a preliminary hearing and the victim’s 19-year-old daughter, who were friends, each were convicted of methadone possession after being found together with pills in April. They have since been barred by court order from contact with each other.

The witness testified at a preliminary hearing that Hamby told her a day after the killing that she had accidentally stabbed Gischel during a fight.

Gischel died of a single stab wound to the chest early Nov. 20 after emergency surgery at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville.

The Baltimore-area man and soon-to-be first-time grandfather lived “off and on” at the apartment, relatives and neighbors said. His death came just days after the man’s brother “had a bad feeling” about his well-being.

Hamby is scheduled for a two-day July jury trial.