GOSHEN – Edward Holley and his attorneys were back in court in the Megan McDonald murder case on Thursday, trying to get what they couldn’t get in July: a new judge.
Paul Weber, Holley’s defense attorney, renewed his call for Orange County Judge Hyun Chin Kim to recuse herself from the case. He cited the same reason he gave in his pre-trial motions, that Kim’s principal law clerk, Karen Edelman-Reyes, had worked in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office when the 2003 murder of Megan McDonald was being investigated.
Holley faces 25 years to life in the 2003 bludgeoning death of 20-year-old McDonald, with whom he had a physical relationship. Orange County’s stubbornest cold case bedeviled investigators for 20 years before Holley was arrested in April 2023. A grand jury indicted him in January 2024 on a single second-degree murder charge. Holley has maintained his innocence.
Weber’s latest call for Kim to step aside came as the judge was to convene a “Huntley hearing” to ensure that statements made by Holley to investigators were voluntary beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors are to call witnesses over what could be a few days of testimony in Court 13 in the Orange County Courthouse.