Staff Report
Daytona Beach News-Journal
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The prison inmate accused of killing an officer at Tomoka Correctional Institution pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder this morning in court.
Enoch Hall, 39, a rapist serving two life sentences appeared shackled and in a light-blue state prison uniform.
His attorney, Assistant Public Defender Jim Valerino asked Judge J. David Walsh if he could enter Hall’s plea without the inmate making an appearance. The request was denied.
“I want to look at him,” the judge said.
Hall did not show any signs of the facial bruises he suffered before his first appearance last month.
According to reports, Hall stabbed Corrections Officer Donna Fitzgerald, 50, several times June 25 with a piece of sheet metal he fashioned into a knife. Fitzgerald was supervising Hall and several other inmates who were on an overtime work detail in the prison’s PRIDE program. Hall is an electrician in the program. When he and other inmates were called to go back to the dormitory building, Hall stayed behind and hid. When Fitzgerald went to look for him and opened a shed, he attacked her, investigators say.
State Attorney John Tanner, who led the prosecution side at this morning’s hearing, asked the judge that Hall be tried in six months. Tanner’s aim is a quick conviction and a death sentence for Hall.
“We hope the results of this trial will act as a deterrent,” to other inmates serving life sentences who would harm corrections officers, Tanner said.
Walsh did not set a trial date, but did schedule a pretrial hearing for Sept. 23.
Valerino also asked that Hall be kept at Seminole County, thinking his crime might make his treatment worse at the local jail. Walsh ordered Hall kept at the Volusia County Branch Jail so that his attorneys would have easy access to him, and that he be kept secure and unharmed.
Hall served time at Tomoka since 1994. He raped and kidnapped a 66-year-old woman in Escambia County, then hit her in the head with a hammer.