A Huntsville man accused of killing 80-year-old Charles Newman on Halloween night entered a plea of “not guilty” at his arraignment before Limestone County Circuit Judge Robert Baker Wednesday

District Attorney Kristi Valls said that Baker read all four charges against 22-year-old Andrew Reid Lackey: murder during a burglary, murder during a robbery, burglary and robbery. After accepting Lackey’s not-guilty plea, Baker set a trial date for November 27.

“The autopsy report on Mr. Newman will probably not be back by then, but Judge Baker set the trial for the docket just to get things moving,” said Valls.

Athens Police investigators say that Lackey, of 3025 Sunlake Blvd., Huntsville, who gave his job as being a reseller on the popular shopping Web site, e-Bay, traveled alone to Athens on Oct. 31, 2005, in a rental car for the purpose of robbing Newman. A subsequent investigation revealed that Lackey was acquainted with Newman’s son and grandson, who said they had discussed in front of Lackey that the elder Newman was “well off” financially.

Newman, a retired Athens house builder, was found dead inside his 611 North Hine Street home, just minutes after he made a 911 call to police headquarters. Police say there were obvious sounds of a struggle in the background. When officers arrived at Newman’s house five minutes later, at 7:40, they found the back door to the home open at Newman’s home. They went inside and found the elderly victim’s body in his blood-spattered den, where they also found evidence of a violent struggle with pieces of overturned furniture.

Investigators said preliminary autopsy findings show that Newman was shot once in the chest and stabbed “multiple” times. Investigators also found a trail of blood leading from the back door, leading them to believe that Newman injured his assailant in the struggle.

A short time later authorities learned that a man had been carried by ambulance from a Madison convenience store to Huntsville Hospital, suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest. Lackey was treated in the Intensive Care Unit of Huntsville Hospital for a gunshot would to the chest.

Police searched a late model white Nissan, which they said that Lackey had rented earlier in the day of the murder in Huntsville, and recovered handguns, a bloody knife and other items they said linked him to the crime scene.