The second of two men charged with capital murder in the death of a Charlottesville woman in November waived his right to a preliminary hearing this afternoon in Charlottesville District Court.

Twenty-two-year-old William Douglas Gentry appeared in court in standard prison garb– shackles and a striped jumpsuit– and spoke softly as Judge Bob Downer asked him to confirm his desire to have his case go directly to Grand Jury on February 19. Gentry joins his fellow accused and cousin Michael Stuart Pritchett in making the decision to waive the preliminary hearing.

Gentry has not, however, joined Pritchett in admitting the details of the night he and Pritchett allegedly murdered 26-year-old Jayne Warren McGowan in her St. Clair Avenue home late on the evening of November 8 before making off with her Dell laptop and her gold Nissan. The car was discovered on Sunday, November 11, in the woods off Fairway and Caroline avenues, six blocks away from McGowan’s house– and within a stone’s throw of the house Pritchett and Gentry shared with their grandfather.

Following the brief hearing, Lloyd Snook, one of Gentry’s two court-appointed attorneys (pictured here), said he and Gentry arrived at the decision to waive the preliminary hearing because they’d already seen the evidence collected by the Commonwealth.

“We couldn’t see any useful purpose,” he said, citing the fact that airing details about the crime is “emotionally upsetting” to McGowan’s family and to Gentry’s family as well.

Though Gentry is proceeding to indictment by a Grand Jury with a “not guilty” plea, Snook hinted it might not be the case for long– and said prosecutor’s evidence suggests they believe Gentry and Pritchett “are equally guilty.” Soon after the November 12 arrests, Pritchett admitted that he fired a fatal shot into McGowan after Gentry had already shot her several times.

“We’ll set the case for trial with a not guilty plea,” Snook said, “but obviously that could change.”

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