Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
After rejecting a plea agreement earlier this summer, Nicholas Poitra’s murder trial is finally on the docket.
Poitra is accused of murdering 30-year-old Troyal Thumb with a sawed-off shotgun on Feb. 19, 2023, after getting into an argument at Rindy’s Bar in Sheyenne, N.D.
He subsequently led law enforcement on a 65-hour-long manhunt, and wasn’t arrested until an Eddy County farmer held him at gunpoint after he called police and while he awaited their arrival.
Ever since, local residents and Thumb’s family have been eagerly awaiting some kind of closure to the tragedy.
However, any immediate hope of closure was dashed a month later, when Poitra entered pleas of not guilty to the charges of murder, burglary and terrorizing.
Additionally, Eddy County State’s Attorney Ashley Lies presented a plea agreement in July that Poitra rejected, setting the stage for an eventual trial.
Poitra now faces life in prison without the possibility of parole – a potential outcome he’s evidently prepared to leave in the hands of a jury.
Lies and Poitra’s court-appointed attorney, Samuel Gereszek, will now have until early next year to prepare their respective cases, as the trial isn’t scheduled to begin until February 26, 2024 – exactly one year and one week after the tragedy occurred.
The murder trial is scheduled for two weeks in total, concluding on March 8, 2024 at the latest. Lies said two weeks is a typical length for such a trial, and that it won’t take place until next year simply because that’s the soonest available period they could fit a full two-week trial on the docket.
Lies also told the Transcript that her plea agreement is still on the table should Poitra change his mind, but that no additional attempts at a new agreement are being made.
“I think at this point the trial seems pretty likely,” she said.
So now, the focus is preparing for a murder trial – the first in Eddy County since the trial of David Troske in 2016.
Lies has served as the Eddy County State’s Attorney since 2019, as the first female elected to the position in county history. She’s also currently serving as the executive director of the North Dakota State’s Attorneys’ Association.
However, this will be the first murder trial of her career, and she has no choice but to prepare for it on her own.
Typically when major cases – such as a murder case – are taking place in rural areas where they don’t often occur, the N.D. Attorney General’s Office will assign an assistant attorney general to help out.
In this case, however, that hasn’t happened.
“Right now, most of the prosecutor’s offices in our state are under staffed, as well as the Attorney General’s office,” explained Lies, “so they don’t have anyone to provide right now for that assistance.
“It definitely is a really hard burden on my office,” she added, “because typically you have someone with that expertise and knowledge. So I am not only handling this as my first murder, but I’m doing it without the assistance of someone who has the knowledge of going through that.”
Lies is pressing on with trial preparations regardless, which includes preparing exhibits, evidence and witnesses.
At the very least, Lies has requested some additional funding from the Eddy County Commission so that she can hire an attorney to be co-counsel while the trial takes place. Whether she’ll get assistance with preparations before the trial, however, seems unlikely.
For now, the trial itself is scheduled to take place at the Eddy County Courthouse in New Rockford, N.D., as a change-of-venue request hasn’t been filed by the defense.
“As of right now there isn’t a pending change of venue, but that doesn’t mean the Defense can’t still file one,” said Lies. “There are a lot of factors that weigh into whether or not they will file one, but if they do, then the State has an opportunity to respond in support or opposition to that request based on the facts they would outline therein for that request.”
According to Eddy County Clerk of District Court Tiffany Harr, if the trial does take place in Eddy County, jury duty notices could be arriving in local mail boxes no later than early January, 2024.
