Shellabarger trial set to begin next week

VW independent staff

LIMA — The trial of a Convoy woman charged in the 2018 death of her young daughter in Delphos will finally begin this coming Tuesday in the old Allen County Common Pleas Courtroom.

Vicky Shellabarger, 38, faces one count each of murder, an unclassified felony, and involuntary manslaughter, a felony of the first degree; and two counts of endangering children, one a second-degree felony and the other a felony of the third degree, in the 2018 death of her daughter, Madilynn.

The young child was not breathing when found in a Delphos apartment shortly after midnight on April 29, 2018, and died later that same morning at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima of what investigators termed “blunt force trauma.”

Shellabarger was indicted in her daughter’s death three months later and has maintained her innocence since then, waiving her right to a speedy trial and rejecting two plea offers from prosecutors in 2020 and earlier this month.

A trial date was originally set for March 24, 2020, but rejection of a plea offer in February 2020 led in part to a continuance to June 24 of that year. Prior to the start of the trial, prosecutors discovered new information that had not been given to them and another postponement, this time to March 30 of this year, was approved by presiding Judge Jeffery Reed. 

Defense attorney Stephen Chamberlain has filed two requests for dismissal of the case, the first after prosecutors received the new information in June 2020 and the latest on March 19 after prosecutors requested that Judge Reed prohibit defense attorneys from presenting evidence about civil lawsuits that were filed against their expert witness in the case.

Judge Reed denied both of Chamberlain’s requests and upheld the ban on civil lawsuits filed by the prosecution.

The trial will follow COVID-19 protocols and is expected to last a week.