CONWAY -- New trial and court hearing dates have been set for two of the four teenagers accused of killing a Conway couple in July 2015.
Hunter Drexler, 18, of Clinton, and Anastasia Roberts, 17, of Conway, appeared in Faulkner County Circuit Court to receive the dates of their next court appearances.
Drexler, 17 at the time of the killing, was charged as an adult, along with Justin Staton, 15, of Conway, with two counts each of capital murder, aggravated robbery, theft of property and abuse of a corpse in the deaths last year of Patricia and Robert Cogdell, both 66.
The Cogdells had been Staton's legal guardians since 2010 and had thought they were his paternal grandparents until genetic testing in 2008 proved otherwise. Staton, who was 14 at the time of the crime, pleaded guilty to the charges -- along with two counts of first-degree murder -- in May. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Roberts and her boyfriend, Connor Atchley, 17, of Greenbrier, are charged as adults with two counts each of first-degree murder and felony theft by receiving.
Drexler's hearing before Judge Troy Braswell lasted more than an hour in a session open to a small group that included attorneys and two of the victims' family members. Then the judge opened the courtroom to the public.
Patrick Benca, an attorney representing Drexler, opened by requesting a record of the list of minors who had been in a juvenile lockup with Staton.
Benca said he believed Staton had conversations with other minors in the lockup about his intent to kill his guardians, because files indicated that four or five minors had said they had conversations with Staton.
Benca said he could request the same records in adult court and, because Staton was charged as an adult, he argued the same applied in this case. Braswell agreed, granting Benca's request for the list of names.
Braswell also set a pretrial hearing for Drexler for Sept. 20 and his jury trial for Oct. 17-21. Roberts' juvenile-transfer hearing is scheduled for Sept. 22 and her trial dates for Dec. 12-16.
If Drexler is convicted of capital murder, he could face life in prison without parole or a lesser sentence. Drexler is not eligible for the death penalty because, at 17, he was a minor at the time of the shootings.
Information for this article was contributed by Debra Hale-Shelton of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 07/01/2016