Trial date set in Jackson County cold case

Barry Van Whitton
Barry Van Whitton

The Jackson County, Ala., man charged in the 1997 beating death of his first wife faces trial this summer, 17 years after her body was found in a shallow grave in neighboring DeKalb County.

A June trial date for Barry Whitton was set at a hearing Wednesday in Jackson County. The case is being prosecuted by the Alabama attorney general's office in Montgomery. Attorney General Luther Strange's spokeswoman, Joy Patterson, said jury selection will begin June 2.

Whitton, 46 when charged, is accused in the beating death of 28-year-old Michelle Townson Whitton, who disappeared Dec. 7, 1997, and whose body was found in a shallow grave in DeKalb County on Jan. 20, 1998. She died of blunt-force trauma to her head.

photo Barry Van Whitton

Whitton was charged in January with murder. He pleaded not guilty Jan. 27.

Michelle Whitton's body was found in the Powell area near the Jackson-DeKalb county line, about 15 miles from the couple's home in Dutton, Ala., according to Huntsville Times archives.

Barry Whitton also is suspected in the 2007 disappearance of his second wife, 36-year-old Kimberly Compton Whitton, and her 11-year-old daughter, Haleigh Brean Culwell. They vanished June 21, 2007, when she left work at a Scottsboro nursing home. It's unclear when the little girl was last seen, according to the paper's archives.

Authorities have been unwilling to discuss either case in detail since the charges were filed.

Huntsville, Ala., lawyer Ronald W. Smith, one of Whitton's two attorneys, declined to comment on the hearing. His co-counsel, Scottsboro lawyer Gerald Paulk, could not be reached.

Whitton was in federal prison in West Virginia when he was transferred to Jackson County to face the charges in his first wife's death. He was serving time for a weapons violation that stemmed from a 2007 search of his 40-acre farm in the town of Section for signs of the second wife and her daughter. The federal charges were brought because Whitton had convictions from 1988 and 1991 for receiving stolen property, archives show.

As the Michelle Whitton case moves forward, investigators are still seeking information on the whereabouts of Kim Whitton and Haleigh Culwell.

Anyone with information on either case is asked to call the Jackson County Sheriff's Office at 256-574-2610, the attorney general's Cold Case Unit at 866-419-1236, or email coldcasetips@ago.state.al.us.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.

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