Preliminary hearing date set for couple charged with murder of Loretta Saunders

HALIFAX - A preliminary hearing will be held in July for two people charged with murder in the death of Loretta Saunders in Halifax.

Twenty-six-year-old Blake Leggette and his 28-year-old girlfriend Victoria Henneberry are charged with first-degree murder.

They did not appear in provincial court in Halifax today when four days were set aside for the preliminary hearing, starting July 21.

Saunders disappeared from Halifax on Feb. 13.

Her body was found nearly two weeks later off the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick.

Police allege the 26-year-old woman was killed the day she was last seen at an apartment she once shared with the two accused.

Saunders, an Inuit woman from Labrador, was a student at Saint Mary's University in Halifax where her studies focused on missing and murdered aboriginal women.

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  Blake Leggette, 25, is escorted into Halifax provincial court in Halifax, N.S. on Feb. 28, 2014. (Mike Dembeck / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

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  Victoria Henneberry, 28, is escorted into Halifax provincial court in Halifax, N.S. on Feb. 28, 2014. (Mike Dembeck / THE CANADIAN PRESS)