PORTSMOUTH — Opening arguments in the Kara Garvin murder trial will begin Monday morning in the courtroom of Scioto County Common Pleas Judge Howard H. Harcha III.

Garvin, 30, is charged in the shooting deaths of Ed Mollett, 46, and Juanita Mollett, 43, and their daughter, Christina Mollett, 20.

The triple homicide happened Dec. 22, 2008, at the Mollett’s trailer on Snook Road in Franklin Furnace.

Garvin, also of Franklin Furnace, faces 18 counts including aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, theft of drugs and tampering of evidence from an indictment that specifies the death penalty.

Because this may be a capital case, jury selection took about a week.

Prospective jurors were asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire and then were interviewed in the courtroom by Pat Apel, assistant prosecutor for Scioto County, and Charles Knight, co-defense attorney along with William Eachus, for Garvin.

Jurors were questioned about their views on the death penalty, among other issues.

Scheduled to testify for the prosecution are the Molletts’ 7-year-old grandson, who was in the trailer at the time of the shooting, James Damron, the neighbor who called 911 after the murders; and Paul Balmer, Garvin’s one-time boyfriend, now serving a sentence at the Ross Correctional Institution.