Trina Roache
APTN National News
HALIFAX – Jury selection is underway in the trial of two people accused of killing Loretta Saunders.
Crown and defence lawyers will whittle down the numbers of prospective jurors to 12, along with two spares.
Victoria Henneberry and Blake Leggette are both charged with first-degree murder. The couple sublet an apartment from Saunders in Halifax.
Saunders, 26, and Inuk from Labrador, was going to Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. Her thesis work was focused on missing and murdered Indigenous women. She herself, was killed in February of 2014. Her body was found two weeks later along a New Brunswick highway.
Saunders’ family has travelled from Labrador for the trial, though they were advised not to come to the courthouse Monday for the first day of jury selection. Fundraisers to help pay for the family’s stay in Halifax have already happened in Labrador.
A screening of the film “Highway of Tears” is set to raise money for the Loretta Saunders Scholarship fund beginning at 7 p.m. Monday at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax.
The trial is expected to last four weeks.
