Jury selection will continue on Thursday morning in western Missouri’s Platte County in the trial of an Ash Grove man accused of abducting and killing ten-year-old Hailey Owens in Springfield in February 2014.
Craig Wood of Ash Grove (2014 photo)
49-year-old Craig Wood is charged in Greene County with first degree murder, child kidnapping, rape, sodomy and armed criminal action.
The jury is being picked in Platte City, because of extensive news media coverage in southwest Missouri.
Thursday will be day four of jury selection.
Once selected, the jury will be transported from Platte City, which is a Kansas City suburb, to Springfield for the trial.
Missourinet Springfield television partner KOLR-10 reports the trial is expected to take about two weeks.
KOLR-10 will be covering the trial, gavel-to-gavel.
Meantime, two Missouri lawmakers who sponsored “Hailey’s Law” this past session plan to re-file their bill again next year.
Hailey Owens
State Sen. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, and State Rep. Curtis Trent, R-Springfield, have told Missourinet they’ll pre-file the bill in December.
Representative Trent notes “Hailey’s Law” language passed in both the Missouri House and Senate in 2017, but not in the same bill.
The bill would require Missouri’s Amber Alert Oversight Committee to meet at least annually.