Jurors in the murder trial of William Lamar Hinson III had to begin deliberations all over again today after one juror was excused and an alternate was called in to replace her.

The woman, excused about 11 a.m., told other jurors in the courthouse hallway that she hadn’t expected the trial to last this long and she needed to get back to work. There are three alternates, and the new juror was chosen by lot: The courtroom bailiff drew her name out of a paper cup.

Judge Larry Killoran asked the jury to return to the courthouse at 1:15, and “You will have to begin deliberations again.”

Jurors deliberated for about two hours this afternoon and will return Monday morning.

The jury began discussing the case about 3:30 p.m. Thursday and deliberated for nearly two hours this morning, then started from scratch this afternoon. They must decide whether to acquit the 41-year-old Hinson or convict him of second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter. He also is charged with the special allegation of personal use of a deadly weapon. In this case victim Khanh Lam allegedly was killed by being struck by a board. His skull was cracked in several places and his right kidney was lacerated.

One of the skull fractures was in the hardest bone in the body, a pathologist testified during trial.

Hinson’s defense is simply that he wasn’t there during the fatal altercation behind the Blue Room bar in Garberville on July 18, 2015. He says he left after hearing Lam say something about a gun. But two eyewitnesses identified him as the person who hit Lam on the head with a board. A third eyewitness said he was “99 percent sure” Hinson was there.

Lam, 37, was a Georgia resident enroute to Legoland amusement park in Southern California when his truck broke down. While in Garberville he lost his small dog and was searching for it around the town square. At the time, according to the doctor who performed his autopsy, he had ingested a potentially toxic amount of methamphetamine.
A group of men pursued Lam after he reportedly tried to grab a stranger’s little girl out of a van, then punched the child’s mother repeatedly in the face. Footage from a video surveillance camera shows the van leaving Garberville shortly after the incident.
The van’s unknown occupants could not be tracked down to testify.

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