BRIGHAM CITY — A judge has set a June trial date for a man charged in the 1984 murder of a convenience store clerk.
The case was revived in 2005, has undergone a number of unusual twists and has been reduced from a capital case to one of murder, a first-degree felony, that does not carry a potential death penalty.
Second District Judge Scott Hadley set June 2-17 as trial dates for Wade Garrett Maughan, 54. Prosecutors believe Maughan and a co-defendant, Glenn Howard Griffin, 52, killed Bradley Newell Perry, 22, during a robbery of a family-owned convenience store and gas station in Box Elder County. Perry had been working graveyard shifts to save money for college.
The case was cold for years, but new DNA testing helped law enforcement officials link blood to Griffin, who was in a federal prison in California. He was convicted of the murder in 2008 and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Meanwhile, Maughan also came under law enforcement scrutiny in 2005 and was arrested by the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office in Spokane, Wash. He has been in jail since then.
— Linda Thomson