WEWAHITCHKA — A Circuit Court judge has denied a convicted murderer’s motion for a new trial.
Random Jackson, 22 at the time he was arrested on the murder charge, was convicted two years later in the slaying of Justin Curcie. Both men hailed from Wewahitchka.
Curcie disappeared from the home he shared with his disabled father in June 2005. His remains — only bones and skull showing a single gunshot wound — were found three months later in a wooded area near Wewahitchka.
Though the remains were believed to Curcie’s, it took seven months for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to confirm it.
Curcie’s murder remained unsolved for three years until Jackson, who had been a person of interest early in the investigation, according to then-Gulf Sheriff Joe Nugent, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
At the time of his arrest in the Curcie case, Jackson was already jailed on drug charges.
He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2010 and sentenced to prison without the possibility of parole.
Jackson filed a motion in December 2012 citing five grounds for post-conviction relief, claiming ineffectiveness of council, and seeking a new trial.
Three of those grounds previously had been denied in circuit court.