In West Virginia, Joshua Deel remains jailed without bond after waiving a preliminary hearing in the deaths of Shawn Deel and her two children.

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia man accused of fatally stabbing his former wife and her two teenage children inside a Lesage home has waived his preliminary hearing, moving the three-count murder case toward a Cabell County grand jury more than a month after the family was found dead.

Joshua Deel, 39, remained in the Western Regional Jail without bond after giving up the July 30 hearing, according to local court reporting. Prosecutors have accused him of killing Shawn Deel and her children, 18-year-old Abigale Sloan and 16-year-old Dekota Sloan, early July 21 at the home where investigators said all four had been living. The charges are allegations, and the available reports reviewed for this story do not show that Deel has entered a plea or been convicted in the case. No later public grand jury action could be independently confirmed in reliable reporting reviewed through Aug. 27.

The case began with a 911 call that, according to a criminal complaint reported by WSAZ, came from Joshua Deel shortly after 4:55 a.m. He allegedly told dispatchers that he and his family had been attacked and stabbed. Cabell County deputies went to the 200 block of Hickory Grove Road and encountered a scene that the complaint described as chaotic. Deputies found Deel face down near the front door of the living room and covered in blood, the complaint said. As officers moved through the residence, they found three other people who had suffered multiple stab wounds. Shawn, Abigale and Dekota were pronounced dead at the home.

Deel was treated differently during those first minutes because deputies initially encountered him as an injured person at a scene he had reported as an attack. He was taken by Cabell County EMS to St. Mary’s Medical Center, accompanied by law enforcement. Authorities described his wounds as superficial and said he was in stable condition. Sheriff Doug Adams initially told local news outlets that four people had been involved in the stabbing and that the violence appeared confined to the residence. At that point, officials had not publicly identified anyone as a suspect, and Adams said there was no continuing threat to the public.

The investigation changed direction as detectives collected witness accounts and examined the home. At about 5:30 a.m., according to the criminal complaint, detectives who had accompanied Deel toward the hospital were directed back to Hickory Grove Road. Witnesses told investigators they had been outside preparing for work at about 5 a.m. when they heard Deel yelling profanities at a woman. The witnesses also reported hearing the woman before the sound gradually stopped, according to the complaint. Those accounts became part of the evidence detectives cited as they questioned Deel and attempted to reconstruct what had happened inside the home.

Investigators said Deel then provided statements they considered inconsistent. The complaint says he claimed that an unknown masked person had left through the front door after attacking the family. Detectives also learned of an argument the previous night involving Deel and one of the victims. According to the complaint, Deel acknowledged that he had put his phone under a bedroom door and attempted to take photographs. One of the victims confronted him, investigators said. The complaint quotes Deel as saying, “It’s not going to happen again.” Detectives ultimately alleged that Deel killed all three people after that dispute, but the prosecution will be required to prove its allegations in court.

By the end of July 21, investigators from the Cabell County Sheriff’s Office and West Virginia State Police had spent much of the day processing the residence and speaking with witnesses. After consulting Cabell County Prosecuting Attorney Jason Spears, authorities announced that Deel would face three counts of first-degree murder. He was arraigned while hospitalized and later booked into the Western Regional Jail. Authorities said evidence gathered inside the residence supported the charges. The publicly available reports do not provide a complete inventory of that evidence, and investigators have not released a full account of how each killing allegedly occurred.

The deaths also struck a school community that knew all three victims. Huntington High School officials said Abigale had graduated in 2026 and Dekota was a student who had been preparing for another school year. Shawn worked for Cabell County Schools and was herself a Huntington High graduate. School leaders announced counseling resources after the deaths and described the loss as affecting students, employees and families well beyond a single classroom. Huntington East Middle School also issued a remembrance describing the siblings and their mother in personal terms while the criminal investigation continued.

John Sloan, the father of Abigale and Dekota, told WSAZ that his daughter had been quiet and that his son had a personality that filled a room. He said there was nothing he would change about either of them. A close friend of Dekota also told the station he had been swimming with the teenager only a day before the killings. Later, friends and relatives gathered at a candlelight vigil in Huntington for Abigale and Dekota. Their funeral was held July 30, the same day Deel waived his preliminary hearing. Funeral services for Shawn followed the next day.

The July 30 court proceeding marked the most significant confirmed procedural development after Deel’s arrest. By waiving a preliminary hearing, Deel gave up a proceeding at which a magistrate otherwise could have considered whether prosecutors had shown probable cause to continue the felony charges. WSAZ and West Virginia MetroNews reported that the case would instead proceed toward a Cabell County grand jury. The waiver did not amount to a guilty plea or a finding that the prosecution’s allegations were true. Deel continued to be held without bond, according to WSAZ’s report from that day.

That hearing also brought renewed attention to Deel’s earlier criminal record. WSAZ reported, citing court records, that he had been sentenced to 30 years in a first-degree robbery case dating to 2011. In that case, he was accused of using a knife during a Huntington business robbery and forcing an employee to open machines from which money was taken. The station said it sought information from the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation about how much of the sentence Deel served and why he was no longer incarcerated, but had not received an answer by the time of its July 30 report. That earlier conviction is separate from the pending murder case and does not establish guilt on the new charges.

Several questions about the July 21 deaths remain unanswered in the public record. Authorities have described a dispute from the previous night and have alleged that Deel’s account of a masked attacker did not fit the evidence they gathered, but prosecutors have not publicly laid out their full theory of the case. The reporting reviewed does not establish a more specific motive beyond the allegations contained in the criminal complaint. Nor does it disclose the complete forensic findings, a detailed sequence for the three deaths or whether additional evidence has been presented to a grand jury since the preliminary-hearing waiver.

For now, the case remains at the pretrial stage. The latest reliably confirmed court development is Deel’s July 30 decision to waive his preliminary hearing and remain jailed without bond while the case moved toward grand jury consideration. Shawn Deel, Abigale Sloan and Dekota Sloan were laid to rest as their relatives, classmates and school community continued to mourn them. Prosecutors, meanwhile, still bear the burden of proving each murder charge beyond a reasonable doubt if the case proceeds to trial.

Author note: Last updated August 27, 2026.