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Aug 12, 2008 8:51 am US/Eastern
Jury To Decide Bucks County Church Murder Case
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) ―
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Mary Jane Fonder (file)
CBS
A judge has cleared the way for a jury to decide the case of a woman accused of the shooting death of a fellow member of a suburban Philadelphia church.
Bucks County Court Judge Rea Boylan on Monday denied a motion to dismiss the charges against 66-year-old Mary Jane Fonder of Springfield Township. She has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the Jan. 23 death of 42-year-old Rhonda Smith in Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Prosecutors say Fonder had romantic feelings for the pastor and was jealous that Smith was getting attention from him. Boylan put off a decision on a defense request to move the trial due to publicity.
She denied a bid to bar as evidence a pocket calculator with an entry that prosecutors say suggests that Fonder knew Smith had been killed before authorities had made the fact public.
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