McKenna Preliminary Hearing Continued Until September

A Chicago man facing first-degree murder, armed criminal action and tampering with a witness charges in Miller County will have to wait a while longer to see if his case will proceed to trial. Joseph McKenna had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Monday but the hearing was continued until September 9th, the same day he is scheduled to be arraigned on a charge of attempting to escape from the Miller County Jail. McKenna is accused of the June 2018 shooting of Tyler Worthington, from the State of California, in an alleged drug deal that went bad. McKenna had been free on bond on the murder charge when he was captured again in Arkansas with a large amount of marijuana and a handgun matching the ballistics of the weapon that was used to kill Worthington. Since then, the state has announced its intentions to seek the death penalty against McKenna, who is being held without bond. A second suspect, Tyler Kroll also from the Chicago area, also faces a first-degree murder charge in connection to the Worthington murder but he remains free on a three-quarter million dollar bond posted in April.