The trial of a Lamar County woman accused of the shooting death of a college senior from Vicksburg, originally set for Tuesday, has been postponed.

The delay extends for at least another three months a case that dates to May 1, 2002, when James Neal May, who was 22, was found in his home with a gunshot wound in his head.

Jennifer D. Wardle, 28, 126 Old Highway 49, Brooklyn, was indicted more than five years later by the Lamar County grand jury for the murder. Brooklyn is a small community south of Hattiesburg, where May was a student at the University of Southern Mississippi.

May’s death was initially ruled a suicide. Wardle was not indicted until Oct. 26, 2007.

Since her arrest on Nov. 6, 2007, Wardle has been out of jail on a $100,000 bond, a spokesman with the Lamar County Circuit Court said Friday.

Circuit Judge R.I. Prichard III continued the trial at a hearing March 10. Wardle’s attorney, James K. Dukes of Hattiesburg, requested the continuance because of his medical problems.

Prichard will set a new trial date in June, said the court spokesman.

Though the case is being heard in Lamar County, the state attorney general is prosecuting, for reasons that have never been disclosed. A spokesman with the attorney general’s office did not return a request for comment.

The prosecutor is Scott Johnson, special assistant to the state attorney general.

At the time of Wardle’s arrest, May’s father, also named James, thanked the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation for continuing to look into the case beyond the original ruling of suicide, but would offer no other comment. Reached Friday, James May, who with his wife, Peggi, lives in Vicksburg, said he did not want to speak without approval from the attorney general’s office so as not to jeopardize the case.

The MBI is the investigative division of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety and its detectives are often asked to probe cases where local investigators fail or where there is a potential conflict.

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com