Before Timmy Brent Olsen and Christopher Neal Jeppson can stand trial on murder charges, the court has a number issues to settle, including where the trial will be, whether the two men will be tried together, and what kind of evidence will be permitted.

Attorneys for both defendants have filed motions for a change of venue, arguing that intense media coverage of the case over the past 13 years will make it difficult for the two men to get an impartial jury in Utah County. Scott C. Williams, Jeppson's attorney, held up a large cardboard box full of newspaper articles about the case, and cited a recent letter to the editor in one paper in which the writer referred to Olsen and Jeppson as "black-hearted" and urged them to come clean about their alleged involvement in Davis's disappearance.

While statewide news media have covered the case, Williams said most people are more inclined to follow stories that take place in their communities. People in Utah County, he said, are long familiar with aspects of the case, such as publicized searches for Davis's body and her family's habit of leaving their front porch light on every night since she disappeared. Carolyn Howard, one of Olsen's attorneys, said aspects of the case such as the missing body and large numbers of unanswered questions have piqued public interest.

"You can't just call this a homicide case," Howard said.

Deputy county attorney Sherry Ragan said the defense attorneys did not meet the legal burden for showing that publicity will affect the defendants' rights to a fair trial, and said there have been higher-profile cases with more media coverage that were tried fairly in Utah County. Many cases get media coverage, she said, but that doesn't mean the venues change for the trials.

"If we changed the venue on every case we had some kind of publicity on or had equal publicity to this, we would have to change [venues in] a number of our cases," Ragan said.

Olsen's attorneys suggested the trial be held in Heber or Fillmore County, while Williams said he prefers it be held in Salt Lake City. If another of Williams's motions is granted, both sides could theoretically get their wish.

Williams argued in support of his motion to have the two cases severed and tried separately. He said testimony and evidence in support of one defendant could be detrimental to the other at trial, and said the state has not articulated any theory about how they think the two defendants committed the crime together.

"They would be prejudicial to the extent that they connect Mr. Olsen to Mr. Jeppson generally," Williams said.

Deputy county attorney Mariane O'Bryant said the defendants do not have defenses that are antagonistic to each other, and pointed out that there has been a great deal of cooperation between Olsen's and Jeppson's attorneys. During the preliminary hearing in January, she said, attorneys for one defendant would sometimes ask questions of witnesses for the other defendant's attorneys.

Prosecutors presented to Judge Lynn Davis their argument for being able to call a witness identified in court documents as AGP. The witness is not identified by her real because she was a minor during the events that she would testify to.

Prosecutor Richard Lambert said AGP is a former girlfriend of Olsen who witnessed a confrontation between Olsen and David Rucker Leifson, in which Leifson accused the defendant of spreading rumors that he was involved in Davis's disappearance. AGP testified at a grand jury and a federal perjury trial that when she pressed Olsen to tell her if he had any involvement in Davis's disappearance, he assaulted her, drove her into Spanish Fork Canyon and raped her. Leifson pleaded guilty to a federal perjury charge in connection with Davis's disappearance.

Dana Facemyer, Olsen's attorney, also argued in favor of his motion to have Olsen's murder charge dismissed. Facemyer said the state did not honor a request for a speedy trial within 120 days that Olsen filed in 2006 while incarcerated in Salt Lake County. O'Bryant said the speedy trial request was invalid because he spent less than 120 days in jail in Salt Lake County.

Judge Davis said he will rule on those and other motions by June 16. A status conference was scheduled for July 8.

The hearing came just one day after Jeppson's attorneys filed a motion in U.S. District Court requesting a new perjury trial. Jeppson was convicted in September of perjury and making false statements for lying to investigators and to a grand jury that convened to investigate Davis's disappearance. The request is based in large part on evidence from Jeppson's murder case that Williams said was not made available during his perjury trial.

A new search for Davis's remains began nearly a month ago in Spanish Fork Canyon after authorities said they received new information about her possible whereabouts. O'Bryant said searchers have not found anything, though they are still digging.

"My understanding is they're moving a lot of dirt," she said.

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it