Judge sets trial date for suspect in 1979 slaying

Associated Press

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A western Indiana judge has set a July trial date for a man charged in the 1979 slaying of a 20-year-old woman and the attempted killing of her young son.

The Vigo Superior Court judge set a July 9 trial for Richard L. Boswell Jr., who’s charged with murder in the May 1979 killing of Kathy Jo Baker and attempted murder in an attack on her 2-year-old son, Kenneth. Baker’s body and her injured son were found in woods near their Riley-area home.

The Tribune-Star reports Boswell was charged in October 2010 after laboratory testing unavailable in 1979 identified his DNA on a shirt Baker was wearing when she died.

The 54-year-old Boswell is a convicted sex offender and is being held without bond at the Vigo County Jail.