Third Circuit Judge Michael Hutchings ruled Wednesday morning there is enough evidence to try Robert Eugene Bennett on murder charges in the slaying of his former chess teacher, Larry Duane White, whose severed legs were found in a local trash bin in February.
Hutchings set a July 28 arraignment for Bennett. The case will be heard by 3rd District Judge James Sawaya.Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Todd Grey told the court Wednesday morning that according to autopsy results, White had been shot twice in the back, twice in the side and once in the chest.
Ballistics tests determined that a gun found in Bennett's Las Vegas apartment fired the bullets that killed White.
In other testimony during the preliminary hearing, White's elderly father, Dale White, 76, recounted how his only child had just met "Bill Anderson" during the first part of the year.
The friend, whom Larry White taught how to play chess, was invited over for dinner one night.
"I even bought extra raspberries . . . my son blessed the food . . . and I sat there and ate dinner with the man who was going to kill my son," Dale White testified.
That statement garnered an immediate objection by public defender Andrew Valdez, who is representing Robert Eugene Bennett, also known as Bill Anderson.
Bennett, 51, is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death and later dismemberment of Larry White, 52. Dale White also testified that detectives visited him a couple of days after he had reported his son missing on Feb. 23. The detectives showed him clothing, which he identified as belonging to his son.
The clothing - a sweater and a piece of a shirt - along with a pair of glasses were found in a box beside two other boxes recovered from a trash bin at Smiths Food King, 845 E. 4500 South, on Feb. 22. The other boxes each contained a severed leg wrapped in a plastic garbage bag.
Salt Lake County Sheriff's Detective Jerry Thompson testified that he found evidence in Las Vegas linking Bennett to the disappearance of White. Bennett had been arrested in Las Vegas April 6 for fraudulently using White's Social Security card.
Thompson eventually found where Bennett had been living and recovered several pieces of identification belonging to Larry White. The detective also recovered plastic garbage bags and a five-shot revolver.