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Date set for Nov. 13 in Heckel disappearance

SPENCER McCOY/THE EXPRESS Loyd Groves is led from the Clinton County Courthouse by a sheriff’s deputy for transport back to the Clinton County Correctional Facility after a hearing Thursday afternoon.

LOCK HAVEN — The local trial of Loyd Groves, charged with first-degree and third-degree murder in the decades-old disappearance of Kathy Heckel, will be held in November.

Jury selection is scheduled to start on Monday, Nov. 13, in Clinton County court.

Attorneys for the defense –David Lindsay and George Lepley — and Senior Deputy Attorney General Daniel J. Dye gathered in a pre-trial conference Thursday before Sr. Judge Kenneth Brown of Lycoming County to set a trial date and take care of any last-minute issues that might delay the process.

There were few, if any, issues at this point.

Lindsay and Dye agreed that discovery materials have been readily shared, and Dye said any remaining matters will be dealt with by duplicating the prosecution’s entire sheave of documents and delivering it to the defense.

Dye also said the expert testimony will focus on DNA discoveries and an expert on the olfactory qualities canine search dogs exhibit.

Judge Brown has set aside a two-week block for the trial. Several earlier dates were tossed about, but conflicted with schedules of the attorneys.

The attorneys said any number of written stipulations about the testimony of witnesses will be submitted for reviews by the judge. All stipulations must be submitted to the court one week before trial.

Prior to the trial, however, the attorneys are also expected to submit pre-trial briefs, including arguments for moving the trial to another county or having a jury brought in from outside Clinton County, due to pre-trial publicity.

Judge Brown also lifted a stay in the proceedings originally set by retired Clinton County Judge Carson V. Brown.

Judge Carson Brown recently excused himself from presiding over the trial. The Clinton County judge had issued the stay while several issues were submitted to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Those matters have since been resolved, so there was no further need to delay the legal process.

Judge Brown also noted that the death penalty was not a consideration.

As for the remaining pre-trial process, the attorneys must file all motions by Aug. 14, after which both sides have 10 days to respond with written arguments. Any oral arguments that might follow will be scheduled for Sept. 21 or 22.

The attorneys agreed that most of the discovery material had already been shared, that the expert witnesses have made their reports and pre-trial motions have been scheduled.

State police filed murder charges against Groves in January 2015 and brought the former Woodward Township man from his home in Ohio to Clinton County to face those charges after a grand jury recommended prosecution.

Evidence was gathered by the Pennsylvania State Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation and presented by the Office of Attorney General to a statewide investigating grand jury.

The state Attorney General’s Office re-opened the investigation into Heckel’s disappearance in November 2013 following a referral from the Clinton County District Attorney’s office.

The Thirty-Sixth Statewide Grand Jury heard the evidence and concluded that “probable cause exists to believe that Katherine Heckel was the victim of criminal homicide and that she was murdered in 1991 by a man named Loyd Groves.”

The grand jury found that co-workers Heckel and Groves began a brief romantic relationship during the summer of 1991. When Heckel informed Groves she wished to end their relationship, Groves allegedly murdered her following a loud and riotous fight at their place of employment, former colleagues recalled decades later.

According to the grand jury, Groves disposed of Heckel’s body in a manner that caused it never to be found.

The panel also concluded that Groves disposed of or concealed Heckel’s body in such a way that law enforcement was never able to locate or identify it – but that this fact should not prevent Groves’ prosecution for the murder, as there was probable cause to believe he committed the crime.

Lepley and Lindsay had sought to suppress two categories of evidence gathered by police, but last September the Superior Court turned away those efforts.

In the end the Superior Court declined to decide on the legality of a warrant for blood found in Groves’ van (DNA testing suggested it was Heckel’s blood.). The court also declined whether handgun and a loaded clip found in the defendant’s unlocked desk at work would also be allowed into evidence.

The lower court had ruled both searches were legal.

Judge Kenneth Brown, taking the bench for the first time in this case Thursday, said he began preparations for trial by reading through the presentment and the arguments surrounding search warrants.

Groves remains in the county prison without bail on the first-degree murder charge.

At Thursday’s hearing, the defendant sat beside his attorneys and briefly conferred with them.

Several members of Kathy Heckel’s family were also in the courtroom.

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