Man Convicted of Killing Girlfriend, Unborn Baby Gets New Trial Monday

A new trial for a Lexington County man convicted of killing his girlfriend and their unborn son starts Monday.

Joseph Lee Ard was 21 in 1996, when a jury found him guilty of shooting his girlfriend Madalyn Coffey in the head, according to a report from WIS-TV. Coffey was eight months pregnant with Ard's child, who also died.

Ard was the first person to be given the death sentence in South Carolina for killing a fetus.

But in 2007, he was granted a new trial after the state Supreme Court ruled that his attorneys failed to to challenge a state witness about gunshot residue evidence, according to a state Supreme Court opinion.

Ard has waited almost five years for his new trial to start. In a letter to Patch, Ard said the state is trying to prevent him from having a fair trial by appointing a new public defender to his case just five months before the new trial.

"I lost my family to a tragic accident and 19 years of my life also," Ard wrote. "I just want a fair trial to clear my name."

At his original trial, Ard testified that the shooting was an accident, according to documents. Ard told the jury that he and Coffey were arguing about his involvement with another woman when Coffey threatened to kill herself. 

Coffey was holding a gun to her head, Ard told the jury, and when he tried to pull the gun away, it went off. 

The state argued that there was no gunshot residue on Coffey's hands, according to documents, so her hands could not have been on the gun when it went off. 

But the Supreme Court ruled that Ard deserved a new trial because his attorneys didn't "aggressively re-examine the gunshot residue reports," according to the court opinion.

The jury for Ard's new trial convenes at 9 a.m. Monday at the Lexington County Courthouse, according to the Clerk of Court office. The trial will start around 12 p.m.

Ard spent 11 and a half years on death row before he was granted a new trial. He has been in prison for 19 years.