Three Flagler County men facing murder charges entered a Bunnell courtroom together Tuesday morning for pre-trial hearings in unrelated cases.
BUNNELL — Three Flagler County men facing murder charges entered a Bunnell courtroom together Tuesday morning for pre-trial hearings in unrelated cases.
Michael Cummings, 46, was arraigned Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, his latest charge in the death of his ex-wife, Faith Cummings. Authorities allege Michael Cummings beat, kicked, and choked the 44-year-old woman to death during a January argument in the Point Pleasant Drive home they shared.
Cummings was arrested Jan. 15 and originally charged with second-degree murder. But last month prosecutors presented new evidence to a grand jury that indicted Michael Cummings on the enhanced first-degree murder charge, which exposes him to the possibility of the death penalty.
(READ: Death penalty looms for Palm Coast man accused of killing ex-wife)
Circuit Judge Terence Perkins, who presided over Tuesday’s hearings, set Cummings’ next court date for Aug. 14.
Cummings was accompanied by two other first-degree murder suspects — Joseph Colon, 35, and Nathaniel Shimmel, 23.
Colon, who has a history of drug charges, is accused of selling Savannah DeAngelis, 23, of Palm Coast, heroin laced with fentanyl on which she overdosed in her home Oct. 28. She was rushed to the hospital where she died Nov. 13.
(READ: Suspected Flagler drug dealer faces murder charge in overdose death)
Shimmel unleashed a brutal and deadly attack on his mother Aug. 24, stabbing her repeatedly after she threatened to kick him out of the family’s Palm Coast home along Woodhollow Lane.
(READ: Sheriff says son stabbed mom to death in Palm Coast)
Public Defender Raymond Warren represented all three of the men on Tuesday. He told Perkins that Cummings' and Colon’s cases were “relatively new,” both still in the discovery phase. Shimmel’s case, he said, is in the middle of depositions, although those are being delayed because both prosecutors in the case are preparing for a death penalty trial expected to begin next month in St. Johns County.
“This is the one that’s further along in the process because it’s older,” Warren said of Shimmel’s case.
Perkins set Colon's and Shimmel’s next court dates for Aug. 14 as well.