A charge of second-degree murder against Margaret Mary Wright was certified to a Buena Vista grand jury following a preliminary hearing in general district court last week.
Wright, 45, was arrested in May 2024 and charged with second-degree murder in connection with the death of Carl Agnor on April 23, 2024. The district court case was delayed as Wright’s mental health status was under review to determine her competency to stand trial, and she was directly indicted in April of this year by a grand jury on a charge of aggravated homicide.
Buena Vista Commonwealth’s Attorney Josh Elrod called three witnesses during Thursday’s preliminary hearing, all of whom were involved in investigating Agnor’s death.
The first witness, Sgt. Darin Hogan, was one of the officers who responded to Agnor’s house on Hawthorne Avenue on the evening of April 23, 2024. Hogan testified that he and Officer Cameron Wheeler arrived at the house and found Agnor’s son outside, “very, very upset.” He told the officers that his father was “lying in the living room.”
Hogan said that he and Officer Wheeler entered through the front door of the house after having some difficulty getting it open. Upon entering, he said that he could see that “a love seat with a recliner on it” had been pushed against the door.
Hogan testified that after entering the house, he saw a man lying on his back in the living room with his head propped up on a TV stand. There was a large pool of blood and he could see that the man had “multiple stab wounds,” adding that there was “no indication that he was still living.” The autopsy on Agnor recorded he had received between 50 and 60 stab wounds.
Hogan said that he and Wheeler cleared the house and found no other occupants. In a closet in one of the bedrooms, he said he found a pair of gray shorts with a red stain on them, along with several pieces of mail addressed to Wright. Also in that room, he found a pair of youth-size six-and-a-half shoes by the bed that had “an area of red stain on the bottom” and some red stains on the tongue of the shoe.
Both the shorts and the shoes were collected and sent to the lab for testing, though the results of the tests had not come in yet. He also testified that a knife was found on the TV stand in the living room that had blood on it, which was also collected and sent for testing.
Elrod’s second witness, Lt. Christopher Plogger, confirmed the collection of the shorts and shoes into evidence. He also noted that there were several shoe prints in the living room, just outside of the pool of blood, that were “visually the same” as the soles of the shoes collected from the bedroom. Testing would be conducted to confirm if the shoes were a match to the prints, which has also not been completed yet.
Plogger also testified about interviews he conducted with Wright and things she said in those interviews. Wright said that the shoes found at the house were hers and had been given to her by Mike Camden, a friend of hers. Plogger testified that, during a previous, unrelated incident at Camden’s house, he had taken several photographs, some of which showed the pair of shoes.
Assistant Chief David Clements also testified about the interviews with Wright, specifically regarding things she said about her relationship with Agnor. She said that she had moved in with Agnor “about a week prior” to his death, and that Agnor had “wanted the relationship to be physical,” but they had never done anything other than “cuddle on the couch sometimes.”
Clements testified that when Wright was shown a picture of Agnor’s body, she said “I did it,” though neither he nor Lt. Plogger heard her at the time (the audio recording of the interview picked up the comment).
When Plogger asked her a moment later, “Did you do it or not?” Wright responded, “Well, yeah, I stabbed him.” Clements said that Wright did not provide a clear reason for the crime.
Duane Barron, Wright’s attorney, questioned all three officers about a second knife that was found at the scene by a cleaning crew in May 2024, after the scene had been released, and whether it had been sent for testing instead of the knife collected on April 23. Hogan and Clements said they didn’t know anything about the knife, but Plogger confirmed that a second knife had been found by the cleaning crew beneath the TV stand Agnor had been lying against. That knife, he said, “looked like it had been under the TV stand for some time” and had no blood on it and that it was not sent to the lab “to [his] knowledge.” He confirmed that the knife collected on April 23 was the one that was sent for testing.
Barron offered no argument against certifying the charges, which will now go to the grand jury on Sept. 22.
