MOULTRIE, Ga. — With Monday’s postponement of a scheduled court hearing for a Colquitt County man accused of fatally shooting five of his friends and then setting their house on fire, the timetable for a potential trial could be pushed back.

Jeffery Alan Peacock, who faces the death penalty if convicted, had his second court appearance delayed with the cancellation of a hearing scheduled to hear attorneys’ motions in the case.

Superior Court Judge James E. Hardy has not set a date for the rescheduled hearing.

Peacock, 25, is accused of the fatal shooting of the residents of 505 Rossman Dairy Road on May 15, 2016.

Prosecutors announced in March that they plan to seek the death penalty against Peacock, the same month a Colquitt County Grand Jury indicted him on five counts of malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Peacock also was indicted on three counts of aggravated cruelty to dogs and arson.

Prosecutors say that Peacock shot Jonathan Garrett Edwards, Ramsey Jones Pidcock and Aaron Reid Williams, all 21; 20-year-old Alicia Brooke Norman; and Jordan Shane Croft, 22. The five were shot in the head inside their residence before their wood-frame house was set ablaze.

Peacock reportedly was one of three callers who notified Colquitt County E-911 about the fire on the morning of May 15, 2016, according to E-911 call logs.

Initial sheriff’s reports said that when a deputy arrived at the burning wood-frame house, located about five miles northeast of Moultrie, Peacock was at the scene. He told officers at that time that he had gone to get breakfast for his five friends living at the house and saw the smoke as he was returning.

Investigators immediately were suspicious that five healthy young adults would succumb to fire, and have said that an autopsy showed no smoke in their lungs — meaning they were dead before the fire started.

Two dogs also died of burns and smoke inhalation inside the residence, according to investigators, and the body of a third dog with a fractured head was found outside the house.

Peacock remains incarcerated at Colquitt County Jail and is being held on a $1 million bond.