Over the weekend, I found myself wondering whatever happened to Mohamed H. Dawod and set out to find answers.

Mohamed H. Dawod

I found out that a trial for Dawod, the 25-year-old Glendale, Ariz., native who allegedly gunned down a total stranger at a Greyhound Bus Station in Springfield, Mo., is set to begin April 16, 2013, more than a year and a half after the shooting.

According to unofficial records that appear on the Missouri Case.Net website, the trial will take place in Springfield’s 31st Judicial District Court (Greene County, Mo.) with Judge J. Dan Conklin presiding.

Several factors qualify the shooting as “unusual” and, in a sane world, should draw substantial news media attention to the southwest Missouri community:

FIRST, the suspect and his victim, a fellow passenger on a bus traveling from Amarillo, Texas, did not to know each other, according to witnesses –  including the victim’s traveling buddy and other passengers who were preparing to board the bus for the last leg of the journey to St. Louis;

SECOND, according to at least one witness, Dawod shouted something in the air — perhaps, “Alluh Akbar,” the cry that’s been heard coming from the mouths of so many Islamic extremists moments before they suffer from so-called “sudden jihad syndrome” — before shooting his victim;

THIRD, the shooting took place barely 48 hours before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States; and

FOURTH, local police officials were quick to say the shooting appeared to be random, according to a report in the Springfield News-Leader.

Above: Snapshot of the docket which lists April 16, 2013, as the date of Mohamed Dawod’s murder trial in Springfield, Mo.

Though I’m confident all of the nitty-gritty details will surface in court as soon as Dawod’s case goes to trial, a question that surfaced more than 10 months ago remains fresh in my mind 10 months later:  Will members of the mainstream news media cover the trial?  Unlike the local news media outlets, the “big boys” didn’t give Dawod’s case any coverage whatsoever.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  If you can find any national media coverage of Dawod’s case on the websites of any of the major network television news websites, please post a link(s) in the comments section below.  I searched the websites of ABC, CBS, NBC and even Fox News Channel, but found nothing.  Thanks!

Bob McCarty is the author of “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice,” a nonfiction book that’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com.  His second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” is set for release this fall.