Trial Starts For Man Charged With Fatally Stabbing Ex-Girlfriend At Abington Train Station

ABINGTON, PA — A jury trial began Monday in Norristown for a 19-year-old man charged with fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend more than 30 times last summer at a local train station.

Gilbert Newton, III, of Philadelphia, is set to face a jury of his peers in Montgomery County Court for the alleged killing of 18-year-old Morgan McCaffery on July 27, 2020. McCaffery was found dead outside of the Meadowbrook Train Station in Abington a little after 8 that morning.

Police had found McCaffery lying in the parking lot next to her running car, covered in blood from the stab wounds to her neck and stomach, Patch previously reported.

The jury trial, overseen by Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge William R. Carpenter, is expected to last about a week, according to the criminal docket sheet in the case.

Newton is being charged with first-degree murder, third-degree murder and possession of an instrument of crime. Court records show that Newton was previously held for court on all three of the charges.

Montgomery County investigators previously said that the killing came about a month after McCaffery broke off a year-long relationship with Newton.

The District Attorney's office had stated that the two had apparently met up at the train station to discuss their relationship.

According to the D.A.'s Office, police in Philadelphia went to Newton's residence in that city around 10 a.m. on the day of the killing and found him sitting on a couch in blood-soaked clothing.

At the time, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said that authorities were seeing an increase of domestic violence during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"A young woman with her whole life ahead of her, just graduated from high school, was brutally stabbed to death," Steele said at the time. "This murder is a tragedy for her family, her friends and everyone who loved her."

Steele's office said at the time that an autopsy conducted by Ian Hood of the Montgomery County Coroner's Office determined that McCaffery died from more than 30 stab and slash wounds and that the manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Court records show that Newton is being represented by Philadelphia criminal defense attorney A. Charles Peruto, Jr. The case is being tried by Kathleen McLaughlin of the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office, according to the court docket.