It will be a week before the couple charged in the killing of Saint Mary’s University student Loretta Saunders find out if they will stand trial on charges of first-degree murder.
Blake Leggette, 26, and Victoria Henneberry, 28, were charged with Saunders’ killing on Feb. 27, two weeks after the 26-year-old Inuk woman disappeared from her Halifax apartment.
The court heard from several police and civilian witnesses Thursday and Friday, but their testimony is subject to a publication ban.
Preliminary hearings are held to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed to trial, something Judge Anne Derrick will decide on Aug. 1 in the case of Henneberry and Leggette.
Saunders, 26, disappeared from Halifax on Feb. 13. Henneberry and Leggette had been subletting her apartment in Cowie Hill. They were arrested in Ontario with her car five days after she disappeared. Her body was found in a wooded area off the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick on Feb. 26.
The couple’s preliminary hearing has seen some dramatic moments requiring heavy security to be brought in, and the pair being brought to the courthouse early, outside court testimony.
On the third day, Saunders’s uncle lunged at the co-accused, but family members grabbed him before he reached the two.
Agencies/Canadajournal