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McKinney man's murder-for-hire trial gets start date
By Danny Gallagher, dgallagher@acnpapers.com
The capital murder trial of a McKinney man implicated in a murder-for-hire scheme in Frisco will have his day in court.
Mark Lyle Bell's trial has been scheduled to start on Nov. 7, according to Collin County court records.
The pre-trial process will start seven months ahead of the trial's start date in April with a round of motions regarding witness lists from both sides of the case and the questionnaire that potential jurors will receive during the voir dire process, which is scheduled to start in September, according to court records.
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| Mark Lyle Bell |
The trial was to be overseen by 401st District Judge Mark Rusch, but the judge recused himself after a lengthy and controversial showdown between defense attorneys and the Collin County District Attorney's Office over a search warrant executed at one of the defense attorney's offices in connection with the murder case.
Rusch signed a search warrant in February of 2008 for Gore's office, one of the attorneys representing Bell. The Collin County District Attorney's office submitted the request for Gore's office on W. Virginia Parkway after staffers learned Gore may have received evidence from Bell's wife, Linda, including a pair of shoes that he allegedly wore during the initial murder and letters detailing escape plans and suicide attempts, according to the warrant affidavit.
Defense attorneys claim after the search warrant was executed, the overseer of the search, attorney Eric Higgins, and two Frisco police detectives returned some of the seized materials to Rusch's home including a sealed box. They claim if the detectives were called to testify, they would recall that they left Rusch and Higgins alone with the materials and then later saw Rusch open the sealed box with a knife, according to the brief.
Defense attorneys believe that Rusch made himself a witness in the case when he inspected the materials in his home.
"Unfortunately, we anticipate having to call Judge Rusch as a witness in regards to various motions to suppress that will be heard in the future," defense attorney Steven Miears said back in 2008 after presiding Judge Gary Stephens approved the recusal motion. "We definitely want to know his thoughts on why the Frisco (Police) detectives dispute his version of the facts on how our evidence was handled."
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