Bennett murder trial set for June 8

EPHRATA — Going against recommendations made by defense and the prosecutor handling the case, a Grant County Superior Court Judge has set trial for early June in the case of an Ephrata man who is accused of killing an elderly Ephrata woman in 2014.

Grant County Superior Court Judge John Knodell set a June 8 trial date for Chad Bennett, 26, of Ephrata, who is charged with killing Lucille Moore, 82, of Ephrata. Moore’s body was found in her Ephrata home on Sept. 8, 2014, with her cause of death determined to be sharp wounds to the neck and chest. Bennett was taken into custody about a month-and-a-half later on Nov. 25 and charged with the murder of his landlord, with prosecutors stating Bennett’s DNA was found at the crime scene and alleging he killed Moore because of an impending eviction.

During a meeting on Friday, Knodell heard arguments from Deputy Prosecutor Edward Owens and Bennett’s defense council David Bustamante, who offered the judge different dates for scheduling the defendant’s murder trial. Owens argued for setting the trial for either for the first week of September or the second week of October for several reasons. Owens cited the need to review additional evidence and the difficulty in gathering witnesses, experts, a jury who hasn’t heard about the case, and investigators for a trial during summer months, the defense council recently finishing another murder trial in Grant County, and needing to prepare for the Bennett case.

“When Mr. Bustamante was in (the other murder) trial I sent out a vacation schedule to the witnesses. We have quite a few witnesses in different areas, different offices: the sheriff’s office, Ephrata PD, the WSP (Washington State Patrol) Crime Lab, the pathologist, the coroner, all this stuff,” Owens explained. “I have all of their vacation schedules and it’s unbelievable that in June, the whole month of June, lots of people are gone. July, lots of people are gone.”

Bustamante stated the situation boils down to the lawyers wanting one thing in the case and the defendant wanting another. He explained his client does not want the case to be continued even further, as he has already been in jail for well over a year. He told Knodell he could be prepared to go to trial by June 27.

Bustamante said while he was representing another client during a trial in mid-March through early-April, he told Owens he would ideally need between three and four months to prepare the Bennett case after the other trial he was involved with ended.

“That would have put us around June or July, because we were in March when we had that discussion. And now it’s looking like June or July is not going to work out so well. So Mr. Bennett is asking me to have the trial set in June and schedule it in June if at all possible,” Bustamante stated. “I haven’t heard really a detailed reason why we have to go all the way to September other than just the generalities about, ‘well there is people on vacations over the summertime.’ So we would object to anything past the first week of July.”

Knodell went against the recommendations from Owens and Bustamante and set the trial date for June 8.

“This will be on the docket on May 31 and if council wants a further continuance I’ll entertain that if you want at that time,” Knodell told Owens and Bustamante. “But at this point we have got a number of problems between now and July. It may be that we are not going to be able to pick a jury in June at any rate.”

Richard Byrd can be reached via email at city@columbiabasinherald.com.