People v. Murbarger

── People v. Murbarger ── Court: Appellate Court of Illinois Date: April 13, 2026 Category: General NOTICE 2026 IL App (5th) 230430 Decision filed 04/13/26. The text of this decision may be NO. 5-23-0430 changed or corrected prior to the filing of a Petition for Rehearing or the disposition of IN THE the same. APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIFTH DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________ THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, ) Appeal from the ) Circuit Court of Plaintiff-Appellee, ) Wayne County. ) v. ) No. 20-CF-162 ) BRODEY I. MURBARGER, ) Honorable ) Michael J. Molt, Defendant-Appellant. ) Judge, presiding. ______________________________________________________________________________ JUSTICE SHOLAR delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Justices Boie and McHaney * concurred in the judgment and opinion. OPINION ¶1 A Wayne County jury found defendant, Brodey I. Murbarger, guilty of first degree murder. The trial court sentenced him to 50 years in prison with 3 years of mandatory supervised release. Defendant raises three arguments on appeal. First, defendant contends that the trial court’s denial of a request for change of venue and request for appointment of an expert to conduct a phone survey deprived him of the right to a trial by an impartial jury. Next, defendant contends that he is entitled to a hearing pursuant to People v. Harris, 2018 IL 121932, to determine whether the sentencing protections established in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), apply to him. Finally, defendant contends that two of his murder convictions must be vacated under the one-act, * Justice Moore was originally assigned to the panel prior to his retirement. Justice McHaney was substituted on the panel and has read the briefs. 1 one-crime rule because there was only one decedent. For the reasons that follow, we affirm defendant’s conviction. However, we vacate defendant’s convictions and sentences on counts I and II and order the mittimus corrected accordingly. ¶2 I. BACKGROUND ¶3 We recite only those facts necessary to our disposition. The State charged defendant by information with the first degree murder of Megan Nichols. Count I alleged that defendant knowingly caused Nichols’s death by suffocation. Count II alleged that defendant knowingly caused her death by strangulation. Count III alleged that he knowingly caused her death by means unknown. ¶4 At the time of the offense, defendant was 18 years old. Nichols went missing in July 2014 when she was 15 years old. Defendant and Nichols were in a dating relationship. Nichols remains were discovered in December 2017, and defendant was ultimately arrested in October 2020. Defendant was 26 years old at the time of his trial. ¶5 Prior to trial, defendant filed a “motion for change of place of trial.” In his motion, he asked for a transfer of his trial to a different county. He argued that residents of Wayne County were prejudiced against him because of the extensive pretrial publicity his case received. Defendant argued that he experienced “harassment and scorn” and the pretrial publicity was of a nature and extent that “it would be impossible to find a jury from Wayne County that was free of prejudice” against him. ¶6 Defendant also filed a motion for the appointment of an expert to conduct a survey