GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) - A man suspected of kidnapping and killing Grand Junction mother Paige Birgfeld in 2007 is going to trial.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports (https://bit.ly/1Idpthj ) a Monday ruling by Mesa County District Judge Brian Flynn says there is enough evidence to take 64-year-old Lester Jones to trial next year.
Arraignment hasn’t been scheduled, but Flynn set a motion hearing for October. Prosecutors want jurors to hear testimony about Jones’s past violence, and public defenders want to present evidence supporting an alternate suspect theory.
Birgfield, a mother of three, went missing June 28, 2007. Her vehicle was found a few days later in a parking lot near Jones’s workplace.
Public defenders say George Coralluzzo could have killed Birgfield. Coralluzzo died in 2011, but was cleared as a suspect in 2013.
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Information from: The Daily Sentinel, https://www.gjsentinel.com
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