Barbara Cupp

PARKERSBURG — A Belmont woman is preparing to go to trial this week for the killing of a Williamstown man in March 2025.

Jury selection took place Monday in the court of Wood County Circuit Judge Robert Waters.

Barbara Cupp, 33, was charged last fall with murder and being a person prohibited from possessing firearms.

On March 18, 2025 Wood County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to 158 Maple Drive in Williamstown, where resident Matthew Allen Bills, 37, was found dead of apparent gunshot wounds, the sheriff’s office reported. Cupp was found in the residence, unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, and taken to WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center, according to a Facebook post from the Wood County Sheriff’s Office at the time.

The post indicated Cupp was in a relationship with Bills.

She was indicted in September on charges of murder and being a person prohibited from possessing firearms due to being convicted of domestic battery in December 2013 in Pleasants County.

A clerk in the Wood County Circuit Clerk’s office said a criminal complaint in the case was not available. Officials in the Wood County Prosecutor’s Office said the charges were brought by a direct indictment.

A direct indictment is issued by a grand jury to charge someone with a crime without a preliminary hearing or criminal complaint.

Cupp is being held in the North Central Regional Jail without bond.

Opening arguments were scheduled to begin this morning in Waters’ court.