New trial denied...
by News Department on 06/17/15A federal judge denied the request for a new trial Tuesday by Robert P. Russell, the Mahanoy City man serving a life sentence for killing his wife in Virginia and dumping her body down a mine shaft in Schuylkill County.
On May 3, 1991, a federal jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted Robert Russell of murdering his wife, 29 year old Capt. Shirley Gibbs Russell, in the storage area of their home on the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled Russell already had litigated his claim that newly discovered evidence would prove his innocence in the killing of his wife. As a result, Russell, 58, will remain confined at United States Penitentiary, Allenwood, in Union County, where he is serving a life sentence without parole that was set by U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris on Aug. 2, 1991.
