FAIRHOPE, Ala. - The defendant charged with murder in the shooting death of Thomas J. Perkins last summer pled not guilty this week in Baldwin County Circuit Court.

Benjamin Kirby Blackman, 25, of Fairhope, entered a not guilty plea Feb. 16 before Judge Langford Floyd, who appointed Fairhope attorney Clark Stankoski to represent Blackman, according to an employee with the Baldwin County District’s Attorney Office.

Blackman turned himself in at the Fairhope Police Department last summer shortly after the July 5 shooting and has remained incarcerated at the Baldwin County Corrections Center on a $750,000 bond.

Perkins, 22, was shot and killed in the 1900 block of Young Street in Fairhope, according to the November indictment of Blackman for murder by a county grand jury. Blackman allegedly shot Perkins in the back of the head after a group altercation on Kirkman Lane near Young Street following a July 4th weekend celebration.

Perkins was a former high school football player from Frisco City who often visited family in Fairhope, according to a previous report.

A trial date was not set at the Feb. 16 arraignment of Blackman, and a DA employee said the earliest the case might go to trial would be in May.

Stankoski declined comment Wednesday, pending review of the case.