A tentative trial date has been set for a man charged with murder in the 2016 death of his niece's boyfriend.
Keith Wade Jones, 61, of Rand, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the murder charge during an arraignment held before Kanawha County Circuit Judge Duke Bloom. Bloom set Jones' trial for May 22.
Jones is accused of killing 34-year-old Joe Williams with a single gunshot wound to the head after some sort of disagreement last September. Williams was pronounced dead at the scene.
A Kanawha grand jury returned an indictment charging Jones with murder last week. He has been held in South Central Regional Jail without bail since Sept. 30, the day of the incident.
Jones was found by a West Virginia State Police trooper sitting next to Williams on a bed in the living room, where Jones slept at 5609 Elaine Drive in Rand, according to previous Gazette-Mail reports.
Trooper Aaron Wilson said Jones and Williams had been sitting next to each other before the disagreement began. When the trooper questioned Jones after the shooting, the man said the incident happened quickly and that he couldn't remember what was said that made him mad.
It prompted Jones, however, "to remove a .38 Special revolver from his pocket and shoot Mr. Williams," the trooper wrote in a criminal complaint filed against Jones.
