NOLAN COUNTY, Texas — Shawn Adkins, the man accused of killing Colorado City teen Hailey Dunn, had a pretrial hearing Wednesday in Judge Glen Harrison's courtroom in the Nolan County Courthouse.
Adkins was physically present in the courtroom for the hearing.
Adkins original trial date is scheduled for Aug. 7, 2023. However, during the pretrial hearing, both the state and defense asked the judge to push the trial date back to Sept. 11, 2023.
The state is asking for the date to be pushed back because of the case's timing. They referenced it being an old case, with many law enforcement agencies being involved with records, documents, interviews and reports over the years.
The state has also discovered and gathered lots of evidence. Most recently, they've discovered six file boxes of evidence in Mitchell County.
They're still going through those boxes at this time, but they do say most of it is evidence both the state and defense already has.
During the hearing, the state noted how all the evidence they've gathered is placed on a hard drive and shared with the defense. They provided an updated hard drive to Adkins' attorney Matt Powell on March 2023.
Recently, the state also discovered the Dunn family had hired a private investigator to do her own investigation on the case.
The state's attorney informed the judge that they met with the the private investigator and Hailey's father, Clint Dunn, last Thursday in Michigan. While there, they told the P.I. they'll need her reports so they can be shared as evidence and included in the trial.
The investigator has yet to send her reports to the state.
The state and defense also have not made jury questionnaires yet. Jury questionnaires are the forms that potential jurors fill out to help with jury selection.
Judge Harrison made it clear in the hearing that all evidence needs to be gathered and jury questionnaire drafts need to be made by the time they meet again at the next pretrial meeting on July 7, 2023. At the next pretrial hearing, the judge will also make a decision on whether he will move the trial date or not.