Loretta Saunders murder trial set for New Year

The trial of the two people accused of killing Loretta Saunders is scheduled to begin early in the new year.

The body of the 26-year-old Saint Mary’s student was found in the median of the Trans-Canada Highway west of Salisbury, N.B., on Feb. 26. She was last seen on Feb. 13.

Victoria Henneberry, 28, and Blake Leggette, 25, are both charged with first-degree murder in Saunders’s death. Police believe she was killed in the Halifax apartment she shared with the pair and that they then disposed of her body in New Brunswick.

The trial is scheduled for four weeks, beginning in mid-April. But before that, a hearing must be held to determine whether there will be one trial, or two.

Four days have been set aside, beginning Jan. 19, to discuss the admissibility of evidence. 

Henneberry’s lawyer, Pat Atherton, has requested a separate trial for his client. The Crown is opposing that request. Saunders’s family is also opposed to two trials. No date has been set for the severance hearing.

Henneberry and Leggette had been subletting Saunders apartment in Cowie Hill. They were arrested in Harrow, Ontario with her car five days after she disappeared.

The couple's preliminary hearing in August had some dramatic moments, requiring heavy security to be brought in to provincial court in Halifax.

On the third day, Saunders's uncle lunged at the co-accused, but family members grabbed him before he reached the two.

Saunders was an Inuk woman from Labrador who was writing a thesis on missing and murdered aboriginal women at the time of her disappearance. Her family said at the time that they hoped to complete her thesis. They have also established a scholarship in her honour. The first person to receive one of the scholarships was awarded the money earlier this month.