Defense calls for change of venue in Capital murder trial of accused Tomoka corrections guard murderer

Courtesy photos. Corrections officer Donna Fitzgerald was murdered by an inmate at Tomoka prison -- stabbed 25 times on June 25, 2008, while she was working alone in a section of the prison with 13 inmates. Enoch Hall, a lifer, is charged with capital murder and faces the death penalty, if convicted at trial.

DAYTONA BEACH -- A judge will decide later this week after jury selection is completed on a defense request for a change of venue for the capital murder trial of a Tomoka Correctional Institution inmate accused of stabbing a corrections officer to death on June 25, 2008.

Circuit Judge J. David Walsh will decide after 12 jurors and three alternates are chosen in the trial for 40-year-old Enoch Hall, already serving two life sentences for kidnapping and rape.

The state is seeking the death penalty if he is convicted of the killing of Donna Fitzgerald whose body was found in a remote area of the Daytona Beach prison. Jury selection got underway and is exprcted to take the better part of the week in Walsh's courtroom on the secod floor of the Justice Center on Ridgewood Avenue.

Hall's attorneys want the trial moved out of Volusia County, with the most likely place being St. Augustine because of pre-trial publicity.