Attorneys representing Chester Brown, who is charged with the 2023 murder and strangulation of Doris Critzer in her Washington home, requested a private hearing with a Rappahannock judge to discuss expert witnesses in the case.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Art Goff, his staff, law enforcement and the press were instructed to leave the courtroom Thursday as Judge Dennis Hupp held an “ex parte” hearing, a closed session with only the defense present.
Before the courtroom was cleared, Hupp said the defense — attorneys from the Public Defenders Office — had filed a request for confidentiality to protect their trial strategy. Brown was not present.
A weeklong jury trial is scheduled for the case in late October.
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Ireland joined Foothills Forum as a full-time reporter in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a degree in journalism and minor in music. As a student, she gained valuable experience in reporter and editor positions at The Red & Black, an award-winning student newspaper, and contributed to Grady Newsource and the Athens Banner-Herald. She spent three years as an editorial assistant at Georgia Magazine, UGA’s quarterly alumni publication, and interned with The Bitter Southerner.
Growing up in a small town in Southeast Georgia, Ireland developed a deep appreciation for rural communities and the unique stories they have to tell. She completed undergraduate research on news deserts, ghost papers and the ways rural communities in Georgia are being forced to adapt to a lack of local news. This research further sparked her interest in a career contributing to the preservation of local and rural news.
