The second attempt to seat a jury in the capital murder case of 32 year old Bass Webb is scheduled to begin Wednesday in Falmouth, a town of more than 2,000 residents about 50 miles north of Lexington. Webb was to have gone on trial in December in Cynthiana, but, after several days of jury selection, Circuit Judge Jay Delaney issued an order saying a change of venue was necessary because of extensive publicity about the case. Webb is accused of killing his estranged girlfriend, 31 year old Bryia Runiewicz, who was found dead in her Harrison County home on July 31, 2009. Runiewicz, a one-time employee at the Bourbon County Detention Center, was studying to become a law enforcement officer. She died three days before she was to begin a job with the Department of Homeland Security. If convicted, Webb faces penalties ranging from death, life in prison without the possibility of parole, life without parole for 25 years, life, or 20 to 50 years in prison. Last year, he was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder for trying to run over a pretrial officer and a deputy sheriff outside the Bourbon County jail in 2009. Webb is serving a 50-year prison sentence at the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex in West Liberty. In March 2011, Webb was found guilty of assaulting a Fayette County Detention Center officer and was sentenced to 15 years. Webb also is accused of murder in the death of Sabrina Marie Vaughn in Montgomery County, whose skeletal remains were found in January 2010, seven years after she had gone missing.
