LISBON — The defense for aggravated murder defendant William P. Long Jr. is asking the court to exclude the state’s cellular location evidence and “Trax” analysis which allegedly places their client near the scene of the 2023 homicide.

“The state’s proposed evidence is not the product of reliable scientific or technical methodology. ‘Trax,’ a third-party visualization software used to plot device ccordinates, has not been validated, peer-reviewed, or accepted by any recognized forensic community and carries an undisclosed and uncontrolled rate of error. Its use in this case amounts to digital speculation masquerading as science,” the motion said.

Defense attorneys David Betras and Frank Cassese asked the court to conduct what’s called a Daubert hearing, to determine the admissability of the challenged evidence, to exclude all exhibits related to “Trax”-generated maps, plots or analysis and to preclude any witness from offering opinions or conclusions based on “Trax” or other unverified GPS data.

Long, 51, North Market Street, Lisbon, was charged in May 2024 with aggravated murder and murder, both unclassified felonies, along with first-degree felony discharging a firearm upon a roadway, and firearm specifications for use of a gun for each count, in the death of 50-year-old Michelle A. Long on Nov. 29, 2023 outside her Carey Road home in Butler Township. She was his ex-wife and a teacher at Leetonia High School.

His jury trial had been scheduled to begin Nov. 18, but has been pushed back to Feb. 3. Now a general motions hearing is set for 9 a.m. Nov. 18, with a status hearing at 2 p.m. Dec. 8.

The motion said that as part of its case, “the state has indicated it will offer testimony from law-enforcement personnel purporting to show defendant William Long’s cellular phone near the victim’s home around the time of the shooting.”

Apparently by using call detail records, GPS pings and location data which were imported into a mapping overlay program called “Trax,” the document said the state is going to show alleged evidence of Long’s movements.

An expert hired by the defense apparently pointed out several flaws, including timestamp irregularities for camera locations used such as the one at Morris Automotive, missing or inaccurate metadata from camera footage from Haltec and Kent State, perspective changes and activation gaps from a camera on Salem Grange Road, absence of visual confirmation at the scene from the Carey Road camera and unverified “Trax” coordinates.

Columbiana County Common Pleas Court Judge Megan Bickerton is handling the overall case, but a visiting judge was assigned to decide a motion to suppress filed previously by the defense. The motion is asking for evidence to be tossed, claiming the search of the defendant’s property was unconstitutional.

The list of search warrants and evidence sought to be suppressed includes: the property at 807 N. Market St., Lisbon where Long had been residing and any vehicles located there; a 2019 Chevy truck; a 2005 Chevy pickup; an Apple iPhone; Verizon wireless records associated with two separate phone numbers; a Life360 account for Long; iCloud accounts for various email addresses; iCloud accounts for a particular phone number or account belonging to Long; Amazon blink cameras; documents associated with an Allstate Insurance Company policy and Google accounts located within a certain radius of specific coordinates on Nov. 29, 2023 from 5:38 p.m. to 5:48 p.m.

Retired Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge William T. McGinty, who was recently assigned to decide the motion to suppress, issued a judgment entry Tuesday asking that the defense indicate in writing, withdrawing their request for an evidentiary hearing and any further briefing.

McGinty wrote that he was in receipt of the necessary documents to review in order to rule on the defendant’s request to suppress the evidence and was under the impression that an evidentiary hearing had been waived.

However, he also noted that in the motion to suppress, the defendant asked for an evidentiary hearing and the opportunity to further brief the matter. He’s apparently asking for clarification.

mgreier@mojonews.com