MATHEWS, Va. (AP) —
A rural Virginia county's limited jury pool is being put to the test by a high-profile murder trial scheduled to start next month.
Amateur photographer Ben Fawley is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University freshman Taylor Behl in Mathews County.
Notices have been sent summoning 125 residents as potential jurors. That's half the entire number of residents summoned each year for all the county's felony trials.
County Clerk Eugene Callis says about a dozen potential jurors who are entitled to an automatic exemption because they're over 70 years old already have opted out. Several others have been excused because of vacation plans.
Mathews has a population of about 92-hundred.
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