Judge refuses to delay Murder retrial for Kevin Andre Towles

Kevin Andre Towles

Etowah County Circuit Judge David Kimberley Friday denied a request to delay Kevin Andre Towles' second trial for capital murder in the death of 5-year-old Geontae Glass.  Towles was convicted and sentenced to death in 2009 for the 2006 murder of his girlfriend's son, but the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in 2014 sent the case back to Etowah County for a new trial. The court ruled that testimony from Towles' son about being removed from his father's home because of excessive discipline should not have been allowed in the first trial.  The prosecution's contention in the case was that Towles administered a fatal beating to Geontae because of the child's conduct report from school.  Towles' case is set to come to trial next month.  Defense attorneys wanted more time before trial to allow a DNA expert to evaluate evidence from the first trial and to possibly do additional testing.  According to the defense, the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences' expert said he could not rule out that DNA on a specific piece of evidence could have come from a female.  Deputy District Attorney Marcus Reid said the defense apparently wants additional tests on a stick found in Towles' yard that had the child's blood on it because there was additional DNA that indicated “at some point a female touched it.”  The defense countered that the female in question has since pleaded guilty to felony murder in the death of her son.  Reid said Shalinda Glass pleaded guilty to felony murder for “failing to protect her child from Kevin Towles.”