White, 39, allegedly stabbed Hall, 52, to death Sunday night.
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As Franklin Municipal Court Judge Rupert Ruppert read the first-degree felony charge that carries a possible life prison sentence, White lowered his head.
His bond remains at $500,000.
Ruppert set a preliminary hearing for next week for a Franklin man charged with murder, though he said he expects the case to go directly to a Warren County Grand Jury.
Ruppert appointed White an attorney.
MORE: ‘Total shock’ father says of learning about fatal Franklin stabbing
Hall’s mother, Brenda Spurlock, of Vandalia, attended the video arraignment and said her son always thought of others first. If someone needed a favor, they called her son, she said.
“That’s the kind of guy he was,” she said.
One of Hall’s sisters, Wende Wysong, said her brother “died a hero.”
On Sunday night, while Nicole Checkawitz, 39, and Hall were renovating her home on Rooks Lane in Franklin, White grabbed a kitchen knife and same toward Checkawitz, she said.
Hall stepped between them and tried to stop the argument, she said. White stabbed Hall to death in the kitchen, police said.
It is the city’s first murder of the year, police said.
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