Wenda Holling, 70
Timothy Nelson Evans
Jury selection begins in capital murder case
Timothy Evans is on trial this week in a capital murder case alleging he killed Wenda Holling, his 70-year-old landlord.
Evans, 56, had been a boarder at Holling's home in Kiln about two years.
Dozens of jurors were summoned to Hancock County Circuit Court for jury section on Monday.
Judge Lisa Dodson is presiding over the trial, which is expected to last the week.
If found guilty, Evans faces a death sentence or life without parole.
Holling's family reported her missing Jan. 5, 2010. Her remains were found three weeks later in Harrison County. A road crew discovered her body Jan. 26 on Turan Road just north of East Wortham Road.
An autopsy showed she died of strangulation.
Investigators have said Evans told them Holling had gone on a vacation to Florida. Federal marshals and Columbia County, Fla., deputies arrested Evans a month later at a Lake City motel.
Deputies later said Evans confessed he had killed Holling. Evans allegedly put Holling's body in the trunk of her own car and used her bank card to buy beer and cigarettes before he disposed of her remains.
In a letter to the Sun Herald, Evans said he killed her three days before her family reported her missing.
In a Sun Herald interview that followed, Evans said he been planning the murder for several weeks. Evans said he had used a pillow to smother Holling from behind as she sat in a chair watching television, but she fought back.
"The pillow wasn't working so I just used my hands," he said.
Evan told the Sun Herald he had made peace with God and wanted to confess.
He later pleaded not guilty on an attorney's advice.
http://www.sunherald.com/2013/08/19/...#storylink=cpy
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