Extra

UC Student Murder Suspect to Request Bail Again

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday January 27, 2009 - 06:05:00 PM

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson scheduled a bail motion for former Berkeley City College student Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield—accused of murdering UC Berkeley nuclear engineering student Chris Wootton in May—for Feb. 2. 

The pre-trial hearing for the case, which was originally scheduled for Monday, has been postponed to March 23. 

Hoeft-Edenfield's first request for bail was denied on Aug. 19, after Jacobson ruled that the evidence presented before him in court was not sufficient to prove that he had acted in self defense. 

Wootton, 21, a Sigma Pi fraternity member, was stabbed once in his upper chest, between his ribs, in front of a group of students outside the Chi Omega sorority house on Piedmont Avenue on May 3. 

Hoeft-Edenfield, 20, was arrested later that day.  

Yolanda Huang, Hoeft-Edenfield’s private attorney, told the judge Monday that the Supreme Court had ruled that her client was entitled to a hearing and to bail. 

She said that the Alameda County District Attorney Stacie Pettigrew—who will be prosecuting Hoeft-Edenfield—did not object to the bail request. 

Jacobson said that since he did not have sufficient paperwork to determine anything that afternoon, he would be carrying the bail motion over to next week. 

He added that Huang had made a series of requests which would require Pettigrew to interact with the Berkeley Police Department for answers. 

The judge also asked for a progress report on the matter by the next court date and announced that he had received documents from the University of California Police Department and the social website Myspace.com, where Wootton had written several blog entries. 

The courtroom was filled with family and friends of Hoeft-Edenfield, who appeared around 3 p.m. wearing a yellow jumpsuit.