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November 2, 2009

Bond has been set for McNaughton

Staff reports



Bond has been set at $3 million for a former Enid attorney accused of killing his wife in Georgia.

Coweta County (Ga.) Superior Court Judge Quillian Baldwin on Friday set the high bond for 61-year-old Alec Bryant McNaughton, according to a story in the Newnan Times-Herald.

McNaughton is charged with malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault in the Feb. 15 killing of his wife, Cathy Lorraine Mendenhall McNaughton, 54, at the couple’s north Coweta County home.

Baldwin had denied McNaughton bond July 17. However, he warned the prosecution if McNaughton’s trial hadn’t started by the end of October, he would reconsider a bond.

McNaughton’s co-counsel, Coweta attorney Mike Kam, argued before the court at Friday’s hearing the defendant be given a $100,000 bond, the precedent set by the two most recent murder cases in Coweta County.

Kam said “high bond would be tantamount to no bond.”

Kam said since McNaughton wasn’t taken into police custody until 12 days after his wife’s murder and that if he were going to flee, it would have been during that time.

Coweta Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney Kevin McMurry told the court a trial date has not been set because Georgia Bureau of Investigation has not completed its investigation. GBI has been asked to test more than 100 pieces of physical evidence, McMurry said. He anticipates a trial date in early 2010.

McMurry acknowledged the law required the court to give McNaughton a bond but asked a bond in excess of $2.5 million be set to deter him from fleeing.

Cathy McNaughton was stabbed 20-30 times, McMurry said.

McNaughton was an attorney in Enid for several years.

According to published reports in Georgia, he was a former director of attorney recruitment for Cambridge Partners, an Atlanta legal search and staffing firm.

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