SPRINGFIELD – A motion hearing and final pretrial conference in the murder trial for retired Westfield Police Det. Brian Fanion was delayed once again to Aug. 24.
BRIAN FANION
The motion hearing was originally set to take place on April 28, but it was delayed to May 27 because some of the ongoing forensic testing was incomplete, according to a Hampden Superior Court spokesperson.
The May 27 hearing was again delayed to August, though no specific reason was cited by the spokesperson for this delay.
Fanion is accused of killing his wife, Amy Fanion, on May 8, 2018 and reporting her death as a suicide. A year-and-a-half long investigation by Massachusetts State Police investigators led to Fanion’s arrest and indictment on Nov. 6, 2019.
Prosecutors alleged that Fanion used his own service pistol to kill his wife and staged it as a suicide before calling 9-1-1 himself.
In the investigation, The state medical examiner’s office found that the gun was not fired from right next to Amy’s head, but rather from a distance of about 18-inches away. Assistant District Attorney Mary Sandstrom said it would be impossible for the gun to have been fired from that position in a suicide. The angle at which the bullet went through, from above and behind the right ear, was also inconsistent with a suicide according to the prosecution.
Fanion was originally held without the right to bail, but was eventually released on $20,000 bail in February, 2020.
