Schuylkill County District Attorney Michael O’Pake is permitted to seek the death penalty in Nathaniel Kimmel’s case.

Kimmel is charged with killing his ex-girlfriend April Mahmod by stabbing her 61 times in Shenandoah in August. He is charged with first-, second- and third-degree murder, burglary, two charges each of aggravated assault and simple assault, criminal trespass, possessing instruments of crime and reckless endangering another person.

Common Pleas Judge James Goodman ruled Nov. 19 O’Pake is allowed to seek the death penalty. Goodman said the motion to declare the death penalty unconstitutional is something he will consider later.

He also ruled on several other motions including search warrants. At issue was a misstatement a state police trooper included in an affidavit of probable cause when seeking search warrants that identified Kimmel near the scene during the time of the murder.

Goodman said when the trooper completed the affidavit he believed the statement to be true. Also, another trooper viewed video surveillance the day of the incident showing a pickup truck matching Kimmel’s left a nearby parking lot close to the scene and went to the defendant’s grandparents’ home, which is evidence obtained without information from the search warrants and is admissible.

Goodman said there was “a substantial basis for Judge Hale to determine that probable cause existed” in relation to the search warrants. That is determined because despite the erroneous statement included a “common sense reading of the affidavits of probable cause would indicate that the defendant was the suspected perpetrator based on his and the victim’s past relationship history, and the description of the perpetrator’s height and build being similar to that of the defendant,” Goodman wrote. Other reasons include the person responsible would be looking to discard evidence.

“We find that the commonwealth presented sufficient evidence at the preliminary hearing to establish prima facie cases for all of the crimes charged, as well as that it established sufficient probable cause to warrant the belief that the defendant committed these offenses,” Goodman wrote.