Judge cancels weekend dates of trial in 5 shooting deaths

ST. LOUIS (AP) - A judge has canceled the weekend dates included in the trial of a man accused of killing four people in Kansas and one in Missouri.

Pablo Serrano-Vitorino is scheduled to go to trial in October. He faces the death penalty in the March 2016 deaths of four men in Kansas City, Kansas, and a Montgomery County, Missouri, man.

KRCG-TV reports Serrano-Vitorino’s public defender asked to withdraw from the case because he underwent heart surgery in April and will retire from the public defender’s system June 1.

The trial is expected to take up to a month. Court documents on Monday showed the weekend dates in the trial were canceled.

A counsel status hearing is scheduled for Friday.

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The keyword, story and headlines have been corrected to show only the weekend dates - not the trial - have been canceled.

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Information from: KRCG-TV, http://www.krcg.com