Man Accused Of Murdering Bartender Asks To Have Trial Outside of Lake County

The attorneys of -- have filed a motion asking that his trial be held outside of Lake County.

McSween, 49, was found murdered Nov. 26, 2010, near on Andrews Road in Mentor-on-the-Lake.

Thomas's attorneys -- David Doughten and Chief Assistant Lake County Public Defender Charles Grieshammer -- believe the attention the crime and Thomas's ensuing arrest have received will make it difficult for him to find an impartial jury in Lake County.

"Lake County (was) saturated with extensive media coverage of the incident at the time of the offense," the attorneys wrote in a motion to Lake County Common Pleas Judge Richard L. Collins.

"Similar coverage is likely to resume once the trial begins. The media accounts have left little room for factfinding at trial and have created a presumption of the defendant's guilt that is widespread in the community."

Consequently, the attorneys asked the trial, which is scheduled to begin September 5, be held elsewhere.

"After such vast pretrial publicity has been revealed, it becomes a legal fiction to assume that jurors will preserve the presumption that a defendant is innocent," Thomas's attorneys concluded in their motion.

The Lake County Prosecutor's Office has not yet filed a rebuttal to their motion yet.

After a rebuttal is filed, Collins will decide if Thomas should be tried in or out of Lake County.

Thomas, 27, is accused of killing Mcsween after she had tended bar at Lakeway Lounge the night she was murdered. She closed the bar but never made it home.

Her body was found behind the house at 5612 Andrews Road, next to the bar, at 8:39 a.m. She had been beaten, strangled and repeatedly stabbed, according to authorities. She likely bled to death.

Thomas was and on charges of aggravated murder, rape, tampering with evidence, aggravated robbery and kidnapping.