By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
After four years as Tucker County Prosecuting Attorney, Savannah Hull Wilkins is running for reelection. Wilkins, a native of Harman and the fifth generation of the the Hull family in Tucker County, has served as Prosecuting Attorney since 2021. “I was actually the first female ever actually elected to this position which I am pretty proud of,” Wilkins said.”I’ve been working here the past four years and have working pretty hard to make a difference.”
Wilkins said she attempts to be as focused on the victim as possible and strives to make sure victims are heard. Wilkins said she has implemented a case tracking system to make sure that no case is forgotten. She also keeps in close contact with victims to provide them with updates such as plea deals to make sure they are always aware of what is happening with their case, according to Wilkins. “I care very much,” Wilkins said. “Its important to me that victims are heard in the courtroom because I feel like a lot of times they are sort of left out of the process and it becomes more focused on this person and what they have done when it really needs to be what has happened to someone else.”
Wilkins said that she is especially proud of the Spitznogle and Dishler trial outcomes. “The Darrell Spitznogle trial, he’s currently serving 110 to 360 years in prison for sexual assault on a juvenile,” Wilkins said. “Of course the Keith Dishler trial, (he is) looking at life without mercy for felony domestic violence kidnapping. So those are two of the trials I am proud of.”
While many of Wilkins cases are often settled prior to a jury trial setting, of the trials she has undertaken as Prosecuting Attorney, Wilkins said she has maintained a 100% conviction rate when before a jury. Wilkins said that her office has not kept record of plea deal convictions. Since she has taken office, Wilkins said she has had three jury trials in Tucker County “So far, every trail that I have done has ended in a conviction in this County,” Wilkins said.
Wilkins said that while not all her cases have the outcome wanted, she strives to make sure the victims are always heard. “I care very much that they feel as though, maybe we don’t always get the outcome we want, but at least that they were heard that somebody has done something to them,” Wilkins said.
Wilkins said much of her work in Preston County as an Assistant Prosecutor was partially funded by the Violence Against Women Act and focused much of her efforts on domestic violence cases. Through the grant, Wilkins said, she handled any case that involved an adult female victim and handled cases involving malicious assault, kidnapping or murder, as well as domestic battery misdemeanors. “Just the nature of domestic violence (is) they are told they don’t matter, they are told that nobody is going to listen to them,” Wilkins said. “So I do try to empower those people and get some justice for what has been done to them.”
Wilkins said that most cases in Tucker County contain a domestic violence component. Wilkins said that in her experience most of the capital cases are tied to a domestic violence relationship in the County and it is rare to have random violence cases in Tucker County. “Typically, in my experience, when we have a murder here in Tucker County, its some type of domestic violence relationship,” Wilkins said. “We don’t have a lot of random acts of violence. Most of the time, if you look at the past murders that we’ve had and capital cases that we’ve had, they’re domestic.”
Wilkins said she tries to handle domestic violence when it happens early in the hopes of preventing a worse outcome later on. Wilkins also said she takes cases of violence against women and children very seriously, but cares for every case that comes across her desk equally, regardless of who the victim is. “Those people are not going to be the same,” Wilkins said. “So, it matters.”
Wilkins is a graduate 2007 Criminal Justice graduate of Marshall University and a 2011 Law School graduate where she did a Child and Family Advocacy Clinic. Following college, Wilkins did some criminal defense work in Morgantown prior to becoming an Assistant Prosecutor for Preston County in 2014.
