An 17-year-old youth charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the 1988 death of a 6-year-old Vernal girl has been given a Jan. 29 trial date.
Roger Dale Strunk waived the hearing during a 8th Circuit Court proceeding Thursday, but defense attorney Kirk Bennett declined to specify why he had done so.Strunk then was arraigned before 8th District Judge Dennis Draney, who set the trial date.
Strunk is charged with capital homicide, child kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault in the Aug. 7, 1988, death of Veronica Fitzen, whose body was found wrapped in a pillowcase near a road 25 miles north of Vernal on Aug. 12, 1988.