Preliminary inquiry into killing of Dartmouth man set for February
A preliminary inquiry will be held in February for a former Cole Harbour man who was extradited to Canada from Venezuela to face a charge of seconddegree murder.
Steven Douglas Skinner, 44, is accused of shooting Stacey Adams to death at a home in Lake Echo in 2011.
The mixed martial arts fighter fled the country after the homicide.
He was arrested on a beach in Venezuela in May 2016 and brought back to Nova Scotia this June.
Skinner appeared in Dartmouth provincial court Friday with lawyer Stan MacDonald.
Although MacDonald has yet to receive all the evidence against his client, Judge Dan MacRury wanted to set dates for a preliminary inquiry.
The judge scheduled the hearing for 10 days beginning Feb. 5. Skinner will remain in custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth.
Adams, 20, of Dartmouth, was found dead in a car parked outside a home on Shadewell Lane in April 2011.
Police obtained a warrant for Skinner’s arrest that July and charged Brittany Leigh Derbyshire, 29, of Fletchers Lake with being an accessory to murder after the fact.
Derbyshire was found not guilty after a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge ruled her confession to two undercover police officers posing as outlaw motorcycle gang members was inadmissible at trial.
Skinner faces eight other charges — including aggravated assault, forcible confinement and assault with a weapon — from an incident in Lower Sackville in July 2009.
That trial is set for January in Dartmouth court.