A 20-year-old Fort St. James man accused of murder has had his trial moved to Supreme Court.
Cody Alan Legebokoff is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of 15-year-old Loren Donn Leslie of Fraser Lake.
Leslie’s body was found on an unused logging road off Highway 27 just to the north of Vanderhoof on November 27 2010.
Legebokoff, who was born and raised in Fort St. James but moved to Prince George after he graduated from high school, was arrested after his vehicle was stopped on Highway 27, just 22 Kilometres north of Vanderhoof.
A member of the Fort St. James RCMP detachment had noticed the truck while he was traveling south on Highway 27. The truck was pulling out onto the highway from an older unused logging road, and given the time and location, the police officer deemed it as suspicious and pulled the vehicle over.
He was detained following his identification, a conversation and the officer’s observations. The officer then contacted an area conservation officer, Cam Hill, to conduct a thorough search of the area. Just before midnight, Hill located the body of Leslie just half a kilometre up the logging road from which the truck had emerged.
Leslie, who was originally from the Fraser Lake area, was enrolled in Grade 10 at Nechako Valley Secondary School (NVSS) in Vanderhoof at the time of her murder.
Originally a preliminary hearing was set to take place over a period of two weeks in Vanderhoof in January 2012. However, Legebokoff appeared in court in Prince George on September 14 where it was decided that his trial would go straight to Supreme Court in front of a judge and jury.
Counsel for the Crown and Defense will be meeting in the near future to set a date for the trial.
The accused remains in custody.
