Mistrial for now in Kavanagh shooting case
Four potential jurors didn’t show up for jury duty; trial rescheduled for March 31 - April 3.
Four potential jurors didn’t show up for court, and a witness also did not appear.
A mistrial was called Tuesday morning in the case of Thighe Kavanagh, who has been charged with six felonies surrounding a shooting and wounding in Tiger Valley.
After attorneys for both sides had completed questioning potential jurors, Rappahannock County Circuit Court Judge Herman A. Whisenant told witnesses and observers that the court had been unable to seat a jury.
As a result, the trial was rescheduled to begin March 31 through April 3.
Whisenant said from the bench that four potential jurors had not shown up for jury duty. It was later discovered that a witness had also not appeared.
“These people didn’t show up, didn’t call in,” Whisenant said.
He instructed Commonwealth’s Attorney Art Goff to issue Show Cause orders to those persons, who will be summoned to appear before the judge and explain why they were absent.
In an interview outside the courthouse, Kavanagh’s attorneys David Walls and Paul Fore from the Warrenton
Public Defender’s Office explained that failure to appear could draw a charge of contempt of court.
Walls quoted the relevant Virginia code section and said that the sentence could be “up to 10 days incarceration and a fine of up to $500.”
Walls also said that several jurors stated “they were biased because of articles they read [about the case] in the Rappahannock News.”
Citing the paper’s reports of Kavanagh’s being charged with injuries to a child, the jurors told the court they felt they could not render an objective verdict.
This was the second time the trial has been rescheduled. It was originally on the court docket for December 19 and 20, 2019. But attorneys on both sides agreed they would need more time. Whisenant was reluctant to extend the trial into Christmas week, so it was moved to February 25 through 28.
Kavanagh’s six felony charges stem from a shooting incident of a child on July 24 in Tiger Valley. The charges include aggravated malicious wounding, use of a firearm in a felony, reckless use of a gun causing permanent injury, malicious shooting near an occupied building, disregarding the life of a child, and seriously injuring a child.
The most serious charge carries a sentence of 20 years to life in prison; two others carry sentences of two to ten years in prison.
Kavanagh, 53, has been held at the Rappahannock Shenandoah Warren Regional Jail since the incident.
On the day of the incident, the Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office received a report from Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton about a person being shot at the Tiger Valley area home of Thighe’s father, Edmund Kavanagh, a retired jeweler.
Later, RCSO investigator Jim Jones reported that the victim was the young granddaughter of one of the residents of the house: Sherry Lee Dytrych, 58, Thighe Kavanagh’s common law wife.
Dytrych is also being held without bond at RSW on charges of obstruction of justice by making a false statement to police and permitting injuries to children, according to the prison’s website.
Thighe, a convicted felon in New York, Florida, and South Carolina has a 30-year record of criminal behavior, including numerous charges involving theft and drug and alcohol offenses.
Tiger Valley neighbors reported that both suspects lived with Edmund Kavanagh after moving to the home shortly after leaving South Carolina, where Thighe had earlier been incarcerated.
On the day of the incident, the Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office received a report from Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton about a person being shot at the Tiger Valley area home of Thighe’s father.