Ex-Chesapeake educator's murder retrial moved

By Rex Bowman

A second trial for a former Great Bridge High School assistant principal whose murder conviction was tossed out in July will take place in Amherst County.

Bedford County Circuit Judge James Updike accepted the argument of defense attorney Joseph Sanzone that publicity surrounding Wesley Earnest's trial in April makes it difficult to seat an impartial jury in Bedford. News outlets from Lynchburg, Bedford and Roanoke provided detailed accounts of the acrimonious and deteriorating relationship between Earnest and his wife, Jocelyn.

In his ruling Tuesday, Updike also ordered the jury to be selected from a pool of Nelson County residents. According to Bedford County Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wes Nance, Updike wants jurors from Nelson because they live in a different media market than Bedford and Amherst residents and are likely less familiar with the case.

Nance said Updike picked Amherst over Nelson as the site of the trial because of construction work going on outside the Nelson courthouse, in Lovingston. The new trial is scheduled for Nov. 8.

A Bedford County jury convicted Earnest, 40, of murdering his estranged wife in her Forest home in December 2007 and staging her death to look like a suicide. Earnest is in jail in Lynchburg.

Updike threw out the murder conviction in July after discovering that jurors had reviewed Jocelyn Earnest's journals during deliberations, though the journals had not been entered into evidence. The journals cast Earnest in a harsh light.