Jury selection begins in second murder trial for Travis Standlee

Jury selection starts Monday for a homeless man, already sentenced to 50 years for killing another Cedar Rapids homeless man last year, in his second murder trial.

Travis Standlee, 45, is charged with first-degree murder in the strangulation death of Sharon Mead, 41, whose body was found Sept. 11, near Coe College.

The trial was moved to Scott County District Court in Davenport based on pretrial publicity to ensure Standlee received a fair and impartial jury.

A criminal complaint shows Mead and Raymond Ursino, 56, both were strangled and had 'strikingly similar injuries.” Standlee was convicted in June of second-degree murder in Ursino's death on Sept. 5.

The trial is expected to go four or five days. Attorneys during a hearing earlier this month said opening statements may be Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning.

Gazette reporter Trish Mehaffey will provide live updates from the courtroom during the trial.

Standlee plans to claim diminished capacity and/or intoxication as a defense, Doug Davis, Standlee's lawyer, said at a previous hearing.

According to testimony in the June trial, Standlee got into a fight with Ursino and strangled him to death in the early morning hours of Sept. 5 in the parking lot at First Presbyterian Church, 310 Fifth St. SE in Cedar Rapids. A video of the attack was shown to the jury during trial.

Ursino died from manual or hand strangulation, according to a medical examiner who testified during the trial.

Standlee was released from jail after being arrested in the Ursino death because Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden said police didn't have enough evidence to charge him and asked police to continue the investigation.

After Mead's death, Standlee was arrested Sept. 22 at a homeless shelter in Des Moines and charged in both deaths. The complaint shows police found fingerprints on a can near Mead's body.

One of Ursino's sisters in a victim's impact statement at sentencing called Standlee a 'coldblooded killer” and another sister forgave him because she knew he would have to live with taking her brother's life.

Standlee at sentencing said he had no memory of killing anyone and had no memory of Ursino.

In the Ursino conviction, Standlee must serve a mandatory 35 years before being eligible for parole.