DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — The third trial of an Illinois man charged with the 1990 killing of a 9-year-old girl in Iowa will not be held in Scott County.
A judge has ordered the first-degree murder trial of Stanley Liggins moved to Black Hawk County to avoid pre-trial publicity. That trial is set to begin May 22 in Waterloo, reports the Quad City Times.
Juries have twice convicted Liggins in the death of Jennifer Lewis, who disappeared from her Rock Island, Illinois, neighborhood. Investigators say she was raped and strangled. Her body was wrapped in a plastic bag and set on fire near a Davenport elementary school.
The Iowa Supreme Court overturned Liggins’ 1993 conviction. In November 2013, the Iowa Court of Appeals vacated Liggins’ second conviction and ordered a new trial.