LINCOLN — The man accused in the murder and dismemberment of a Lincoln store clerk wants some special housing considerations because of recent health problems.
Aubrey Trail, 52, who faces the death penalty in the November 2017 slaying of Sydney Loofe, is seeking to stay at a state prison in Lincoln during his upcoming trial because of a recent heart attack and stroke.
In a legal motion filed Friday, his attorney asked a judge to allow Trail, who now uses a wheelchair, to be housed at the State Diagnostic and Evaluation Center in Lincoln because it has a skilled-nursing unit.
Trail was transferred from the Saline County Jail to the Lincoln prison in January, and according to the motion, he fears that he could die if he is returned to the county jail, where he said the policy is to withhold medications until they are approved by a county jail physician.
“Any interruptions of the defendant’s medications could prove fatal,” said the motion by Trail’s court-appointed attorney, Ben Murray.
Saline County District Judge Vicky Johnson set a court hearing on the motion for June 7, which is 10 days before his trial is set to begin in Wilber, the county seat, which is about 35 miles southwest of Lincoln. If he was allowed to remain housed in Lincoln, he would have to be transported back and forth to Wilber everyday during the trial, which is scheduled to last four weeks.
Murray said he filed the motion to help ensure that Trail can physically make it through the legal proceedings. He has been hospitalized at least twice since being arrested, his attorney said, is taking multiple medications and has weakness in his left side because of the stroke.
A report from a prison physical therapist provided to the judge says Trail cannot stand without help and needs an elevated hospital bed with handrails to transfer to his wheelchair. Murray’s request says the Saline County Jail cannot meet Trail’s “physical needs” and would put him in contact with jail guards who may testify at the trial.
Trail’s 25-year-old girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, is also charged with first-degree murder and improper disposal of a body. She is scheduled to stand trial in October.
Loofe, who worked as a clerk at a Lincoln Menard’s store, disappeared after arranging a date with Boswell via Tinder. Her body was found three weeks later scattered around a rural area near Edgar, Nebraska, which is about 50 miles west of Wilber.
Trail has called reporters, telling them that he was responsible for suffocating Loofe but that her death was accidental. He claimed that Boswell was not present but that she helped dispose of the body.
