A man accused of murdering his mother has chosen to retain an attorney instead of representing himself, as he has done in prior court hearings.
Michael Alan Webb, 35, of James City County, has asked court-appointed defense attorney Christopher Voltin to represent him on one count of first-degree murder.
Webb appeared in the Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court Thursday carrying a blue folder, but unlike earlier this week, he spoke very little, saying only a few quiet words to Voltin.
Per Voltin’s request, Webb is now scheduled for a two-day jury trial May 21 and 22.
Webb also appeared in court Monday for a motions hearing, during which he represented himself without an attorney — although Voltin remained in the courtroom as a standby attorney.
Webb argued Monday that police detained him without reading his Miranda rights and violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by entering his mother’s house without a search warrant.
The 35-year-old also theorized that police officers had committed perjury, and argued that no witnesses had been able to place him at the scene of Edna Webb’s murder, and that he was “an innocent man.”
During the almost three-hour hearing, Judge Michael McGinty told Webb several times that he should retain a lawyer.
Webb is accused of strangling and suffocating his 64-year-old mother at the home they shared on Ferrell Drive in Grove on May 17.
James City County Police was called to the house around 9:45 a.m. after the woman’s coworkers at Eastern State Hospital reported she had not shown up for her shift that morning.
After hearing what he believed to be movement inside, Master Police Officer Brandon Frantz and Investigator Jason Slodysko entered the house together.
The officers found the woman’s body wrapped in blankets on the kitchen floor.
The “totality of the circumstances” revolving around Webb’s life with his mother made him a person of interest in the case, one officer testified in court Monday.
Officers had previously been dispatched to the Webb residence and were aware his mother had been trying to evict him from the house.
