Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Monday, November 16 in Marion County, Florida, in the trial of Dwain Chadwick Hall, a 54-year-old Ocala-area mechanic charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of Sonia Exelby, a 32-year-old British musician and piano tutor whose body was found in a shallow grave in Marion County on October 17, 2025. Hall has pleaded not guilty and denies killing her. Before a single juror is picked, Judge Timothy McCourt must rule in writing on the fight that dominated the final pretrial hearing on November 3: whether prosecutors may show the jury graphic images recovered from Hall's phone that, they argue, go to his alleged motive and intent.
WCJB, the Gainesville ABC affiliate that covers Marion County courts, confirmed the shape of the week ahead: jury selection begins Monday, and the judge is considering the prosecutors' request to use Florida's Williams rule — the doctrine that can let a jury hear evidence of a defendant's other bad acts — for material the defence says should never reach the jury box.
The ruling that comes first: the November 3 Williams hearing
At the pretrial Williams hearing on November 3, 2026, digital forensic examiner Brian Hempstead testified that a forensic extraction of Hall's phone uncovered additional images that Hall had not taken himself but that were cached from websites he had visited — and that reaching them required active navigation to those sites, not incidental pop-ups. In court filings, prosecutor Richard Buxman argued the images are probative of the defendant's alleged sexual interest in violence against women, and therefore of motive and intent. Hall's attorney, Junior Barrett, argued the opposite: the images do not depict Hall, he said, and are irrelevant and inconsistent with the facts of the case.
Judge McCourt pressed the defence from the bench. Pointing to evidence of choking in the case, he asked whether some of the images could be seen as a more extreme form of the same behaviour. “Some of them strike me as similar here,” the judge said. His written ruling on admissibility is expected before November 16, and BoomAround's court report notes it could shape how prosecutors present their entire case on alleged motive and intent.
Under Florida's Williams rule, evidence of a defendant's other crimes or bad acts — normally kept out — may be admitted when it is genuinely relevant to a disputed issue such as motive, intent, identity or a common plan, rather than merely to show bad character. The judge acts as gatekeeper: if the evidence's power to prove a real issue outweighs its power to prejudice, the jury may hear it. That gatekeeping decision is what Judge McCourt's written ruling will settle.
Two years of online contact, according to investigators
According to Special Agent Rebecca McKinsey of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Hall told investigators he had chatted with Exelby for roughly two years, first on a fetish website and then through the encrypted messaging app Session, describing his role as a “mentor” who offered her daily routines and guidance. Exelby's siblings have said the same period coincided with a sharp decline in her wellbeing and deepening isolation. Her family contacted Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary in November 2023 out of concern for her safety, after she told siblings about a website involving American men and vulnerable women; Hampshire officers later intervened again in 2024, examining her devices, and said no criminal offences had been identified at that time.
Exelby's family has since told The Times, in reporting carried by LADbible in October, that they believe she was groomed by Hall over those two years before she travelled. That is the family's allegation, made ahead of the trial; Hall's position, maintained through his not-guilty plea, is that he did not kill her.
Source: LADbible, reporting The Times — Family of Sonia Exelby make new claims ahead of trial (Oct 19, 2026)
The October 2025 trip to Reddick
Court records and testimony reported by BoomAround describe the final journey this way. Exelby booked a flight from London Heathrow to Gainesville Regional Airport for the evening of October 10, 2025, with a return ticket for October 13, telling her boyfriend she would be staying with her sisters. Investigators say Hall collected her and drove her to a secluded two-bedroom rented cabin near Reddick, in rural Marion County. On October 12, according to court records, Hall bought a plastic tarpaulin and his phone's GPS data placed him at a wooded site in Marion County for about an hour. Her family reported her missing that same afternoon.
Investigators say Exelby had travelled to Reddick after asking Hall to kill her — but that she changed her mind, WCJB reported, summarising the investigators' account. That claim is part of the prosecution's case, not an agreed fact: it is what the state says the evidence will show, and the jury will be asked to weigh it against Hall's denial. What is not disputed is the ending: on October 17, 2025, Sonia Exelby's body was found in a shallow grave in Marion County. She was 32, a musician and piano tutor from Southsea, Portsmouth, in England.
The evidence prosecutors say connects Hall to her death
Prosecutors say the forensic evidence is direct. Exelby's body was found with four stab wounds. A customised seven-inch steel knife that Hall sent to a friend in Ohio the day after she went missing tested positive for her blood and DNA, according to court records. A shovel recovered from Hall's home carried both his DNA and hers. Her belongings were recovered from a public clothing donation bin in Gainesville, 46 miles away. Investigators also recovered from Hall's phone a deleted one-minute video they believe was filmed shortly before she died, and a message Exelby sent to an online acquaintance that night in which, detectives say, she described feeling unable to leave and frightened. Awaaz Punjab reports the existence of that material because it is central evidence in a public trial; it does not reproduce its contents.
Hall's account — and his denial
Hall's own account, as reported from court records, is narrower than the prosecution's. Questioned by investigators, he first said Exelby had contacted his roadside-assistance business about a tyre change; after several hours he changed his account and said he had accepted money from her — $4,000 she allegedly offered toward a tax debt he described — to help her die. He has never admitted killing her, and he has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping. He also faces earlier, separate charges of fraudulent use of a credit card and unlawful use of a two-way communication device, tied to transactions on Exelby's bank card during the weekend they were together.
In recorded jail phone calls with his wife of 28 years, reported in court coverage, Hall said, “We needed money but we didn't need it this bad,” and told her he was “not the monster that they are painting me out to be,” insisting he had acted out of what he called compassion: “I tried to give Sonia what she wanted.” He has been held at Marion County Jail in Ocala since his arrest in November 2025, without bond. The state has confirmed it is not extending any plea offer to Hall — a decision BoomAround reports was made at the request of Exelby's family.
The family who will cross the Atlantic for the trial
Exelby's relatives have started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to travel from England to Florida to attend the trial, LADbible reported. In a family tribute released after Hall's arrest, her relatives wrote: “We know that life wasn't always easy for you, but your life was so much more than the struggles you faced. You were deeply loved, and you will always be deeply loved.” The case has drawn international attention precisely because it sits at the crossing of those two accounts — a family that says a vulnerable woman was groomed for two years, and a defendant who says he gave her what she asked for and did not kill her. Only one of those accounts can survive a jury's verdict, and on the central charge both sides agree on just one thing: the jury, not the headlines, must decide.
Source: LADbible, reporting The Times — Family of Sonia Exelby make new claims ahead of trial (Oct 19, 2026)
Dwain Hall is charged, not convicted. Every account above of what happened in October 2025 is attributed — to investigators, to prosecutors' filings and testimony, or to Exelby's family — and Hall denies killing her. He is presumed innocent unless and until a jury finds otherwise.
What happens next
Judge Timothy McCourt's written ruling on the phone images is expected before jury selection begins on Monday, November 16, 2026, in Marion County. If the images are admitted, prosecutors can build their motive-and-intent case around them; if they are excluded, the state's case rests on the forensic evidence — the knife, the shovel, the GPS record — and on Hall's own shifting accounts. Exelby's family is raising funds to be in the courtroom when the trial opens. Awaaz Punjab will report the ruling and the verdict with the same attribution discipline used here.