LEPPAN MURDER TRIAL DELAYED

The lawyer for a former Twentynine Palms man accused of murdering his ex-wife in 2004 filed a motion in court last week asking the judge to dismiss the case. Judge Bert Swift set a court date of November 9 to hear the 995 motion for Charles Leppan, 45. A 995 motion asks Swift to review the decision by Judge Rodney Cortez to hold Leppan over for trial, arguing that there was a lack of probable cause or that Leppan was illegally committed for trial. Charles Leppan, a former Marine stationed in Twentynine Palms, is accused of murdering his former wife Jean Leppan, 33, and burying her in the desert in Wonder Valley. He remarried another woman about two weeks later. Prosecutors decided in 2004 they didn’t have enough evidence to charge Leppan with her murder, but cold case investigators arrested him in Michigan in October 2013 and brought him back to California to face trial. He has been in jail since then on $1 million bail awaiting trial.