SEBRING — Jury selection in the second-degree murder trial of an elderly Lake Placid woman charged with killing her husband, will take place next week.

That’s despite of a request from Amelia Blackmon’s defense attorney that the jury selection process be scheduled for next month.
Blackmon is 71 years old.

Defense attorney John Liguori told 10th Circuit Court Judge Peter Estrada on Wednesday that not all witnesses scheduled to speak on Blackmon’s behalf can be in Highlands County when needed.

“Some witnesses said they didn’t want to be here unless they absolutely had to. Some didn’t want to set hotel reservations unless they absolutely had to. One of the witnesses who lives in Georgia said he’s putting his mother in a nursing home this week, for instance,” Liguori said. 

He also said a homicide case in Polk County he’s currently involved with is demanding a substantial amount of his time. 
But, Estrada denied Liguori’s request.

Estrada said the jury selection process would most likely have occurred in February had it not been for Liguori’s request last fall that the case be postponed until this month.

“And here I am, now being requested to issue another continuance. Everyone has had ample opportunity to get their cases together, so I’m denying the request,” Estrada said.

He also held out the possibility that the date could change.

“But I never say never because there may be a change in circumstances at any time, so I won’t close any doors until the last minute,” Estrada said.

No Plea Deals
Blackmon said in November that she has refused plea deals with state attorneys.

She said she fully understood the consequences if she were convicted of her husband’s second-degree murder.

Any conviction would carry a minimum 25-year prison sentence.
Highlands County sheriff’s deputies said they discovered Billy Joe Blackmon lying in a pool of blood in his Lake Placid living room in September 2003 after his wife called 911 and reported shooting someone.

He was transported to Florida Hospital in Lake Placid where he passed away from two gunshot
trial wounds, one to his chest and the other to his head.

A 38-caliber Smith and Wesson model 36, five-shot handgun discovered on the Blackmons’ kitchen counter was identified as the weapon used.
Amelia Blackmon was arrested later that night and charged with second-degree murder.

She told deputies her husband had become upset with her before leaving for the couple’s garage.

“Mrs. Blackmon having lived with her husband so long felt he was going to become violent and went and retrieved a gun from its hiding place in a guestroom closet,” deputies said in their report on the matter, adding she then put the gun in her coveralls pocket and sat on a living room couch.

Amelia Blackmon told deputies her husband returned to the house and began breaking their living room and kitchen telephones. She said she later stood behind the couch she had been sitting on while her husband stood on the couch’s opposite side, according to the report.

“Mrs. Blackmon told deputies her husband ordered her to pick up the phones’ broken pieces and then shook his fist at his wife. She then took the gun out and shot her husband twice,” deputies reported.

She put the gun down, walked to her home’s front door after calling 911 on her cell phone and was in an emotional state of mind, deputies said.
Mrs. Blackmon said she was tired when deputies asked why she didn’t leave her home after being confronted by her husband.

The couple was married 25 years and lived in a sprawling half a million dollar, four-bedroom, five-bath orange stucco home along Lake June for six of those years.

Highlands County Central Records said there had never been any other calls to that address prior to the 2003 shooting.
Blackmon posted a $200,000 bond later that week.