The first-degree murder trial against Michael David Morrow, who is accused of the shooting death of his estranged wife, Amanda Smith Morrow, begins Monday in Haywood County Superior Court.

It’s been nearly three years since Amanda Morrow’s lifeless body was found on a neighbor’s front porch steps. Court documents indicate Morrow’s wife was choked and then shot in the temple during the early morning hours of Oct. 16, 2010.

Detectives later found Morrow lying on his bed at his home with a cocked .32 caliber revolver at his side.

Amanda Morrow was a seventh-grade math teacher at Fairview Middle School in Sylva and a loving mother to her son, Chris Smith, who was a student at Tuscola High School at the time of her death.

There have been several continuances in the case, including Morrow’s ...