BARNSTABLE, Mass. — Race emerged as an issue Monday in the selection of a jury for the trial of a garbage collector accused of murdering a fashion writer on Cape Cod.

The defendant, Christopher McCowen, 33, is black. The woman he is accused of raping and stabbing to death, Christa Worthington, 46, was white.

The trial judge, Justice Gary Nickerson of the Barnstable Superior Court, queried prospective jurors about their feelings on race and the justice system after McCowen's lawyer presented the court with several Internet articles offering a racist bent on the 2002 murder.

One described Worthington's murder in her seaside cottage as "a white hate crime." Another headline, "Black trash hauler ruins beautiful white family," seemed to refer to the victim's 2-year-old daughter, Ava, who was found clinging to her mother's bloody body.

The jury questionnaire already included two questions about whether the race of the defendant, victim and witnesses would factor into a juror's evaluation of evidence, but the judge added a third at the defense's request: Do you believe blacks are more likely to commit crimes than whites?

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According to census data, 90.9 percent of Cape Cod is white and 2.7 percent is black. The 67 potential panelists from Cape Cod summoned to the courthouse for screening included only one African-American, a man.

Although the vast majority of jurors screened Monday denied racist views, the second juror questioned appeared to surprise the judge and lawyers when he said he believed blacks were more likely to commit crimes than whites.

"What does that belief derive from?" the judge asked juror, a middle-aged man with a graying ponytail.

"My father's teaching of prejudice," the man replied. Pressed further by the judge, the man said he had tried to put racist ideas out of his head, but sometimes experiences "triggered" them.

He was dismissed, but only after the judge wondered aloud if the question "contained a false premise."

"What is the statistical analysis of crime?" he asked defense attorney Robert George, who replied that such statistics would show only the most likely to be arrested, not to commit crimes.

Jury selection proceeded slowly Monday as the potential panelists were questioned one by one about a variety of subjects in addition to race.

Nickerson asked them about their exposure to media coverage of the case, their views on the credibility of police versus civilian witnesses, their experience with violent crime, their beliefs about false confessions and whether they could serve as jurors for three weeks.

Before the questioning began, the judge denied a defense motion to move the case off the cape because of extensive pretrial publicity. Nickerson said he would reconsider the motion if finding unbiased jurors proved impossible, but most of those questioned Monday said they could put aside what they had heard and make their decision based upon the evidence presented in court.

A list of potential witnesses read in court Monday included more than 100 names. Among those who may take the stand are two former suspects, Worthington's ex-boyfriend Tim Arnold, a book author who found her body, and Tony Jackett, the married man who fathered her daughter. Also named were Jackett's wife; Worthington's father, Christopher; a former prostitute he dated, Elizabeth Porter; three former girlfriends of McCowen, including two women he had children by; his father and sister, and the victim's daughter, who is now 7.

If convicted, McCowen faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Opening statements in the case are expected later this week.