NATCHEZ &045; Just over a week after a guilty verdict was returned in one Adams County murder trial, jury selection in the trial of Nathan M. Hogan, indicted in November 2003 on capital murder charges, is set to start Monday.

Once jury selection is complete the trial will start, most likely on Tuesday.

Hogan is charged with the July 28, 2003, murder of John Vasser, who was found shot three times and half-submerged in a pond behind his parents’ Morgantown Road house.

The Adams County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately release the name of Hogan as a suspect but did start searching for him soon after Vasser’s body was found.

Several weeks after the murder authorities began a manhunt in the New Orleans area for Hogan and federal agents captured him about two weeks later.

Unofficial autopsy reports showed Vasser died from gunshot wounds and authorities said there were signs of a violent struggle.

Former Adams County Sheriff Tommy Ferrell said the motive in the crime was robbery. Hogan, an acquaintance of Vasser’s, allegedly took Vasser’s car and credit cards the night of the murder after Hogan was thrown out of Vasser’s house.

Because the murder was committed with another felony, robbery, Hogan was charged with capital murder.

In Mississippi capital murder is punishable by the death penalty.

At the request of the defense, Judge Forrest A. Johnson granted a continuance in the case in July of this year. The trial was originally slated to start this past summer.

In early August Hogan was charged with felony attempted jail escape and destroying county property after jailers at the Adams County Jail discovered he and his cellmate had been chipping away at the mortar around their cell window. Security was tightened after the incident, and Hogan has remained at the jail.

On Nov. 18, Greg Moffett was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the death of his girlfriend Tatanisha Thomas.