Trial of defendant Jay Tolson begins May 31
A May 31, 2022 date has been set for the murder trial of John (Jay) Tolson, the man accused of killing Kitty Hawk resident LeeAnn Fletcher in her home in July of last year. The date was assigned during a court appearance on Oct. 26, according to District 1 Assistant District Attorney Jeff Cruden.
The setting of a trial date is a significant milestone in a high-profile case that had been continued several times this year, for various reasons.
Tolson was arrested in Maine back in October 2020, about three months after Fletcher was found unresponsive in her Kitty Hawk home on July 22, 2020. She died three days later.
That arrest came shortly after a long-awaited autopsy report from the Virginia Medical Examiner’s office determined her cause of death to be “complications of blunt force trauma to the head with hepatic cirrhosis with clinical hepatic failure contributing.”
The arrest also came after an impassioned and aggressive campaign by LeeAnn’s friends and family — spearheaded by her first cousin and close friend, Trisha Cahoon — to keep the case prominent in the public eye, largely through the use of social media. Those supporters expressed their belief that Tolson was the perpetrator and also used the campaign to air their concerns that local law enforcement was not adequately and thoroughly investigating the case.
