August trial date scheduled in slaying of Port Angeles woman
Published 12:01 am Friday, May 11, 2012
PORT ANGELES — The trial of Kevin B. Bradfield, a Port Angeles man accused of strangling a developmentally disabled woman to death last October, has been reset from June 23 to Aug. 6.
Bradfield, 22, is charged with first-degree murder for allegedly strangling 27-year-old Jennifer Pimentel and hiding her body in a wooded area near the Hood Canal Bridge in East Jefferson County.
Defense attorney Loren Oakley of Clallam Public Defenders moved to reset the trial in a court hearing last Friday.
Clallam County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ann Lundwall did not object.
Oakley warned the trial would need to be rescheduled after Lundwall upgraded the charge from second-degree murder to first-degree murder April 11.
The new charge stemmed from an intercepted jailhouse letter in which Bradfield wrote that he planned to murder Pimentel to prevent her from accusing him of rape, court papers allege.
Bradfield has maintained his innocence. He is being held in the Clallam County jail on $1 million bail.
Clallam County Superior Court Judge Ken Williams scheduled a status hearing for June 22.
DNA testing
The trial was postponed in December allow time for DNA testing.
In March, Oakley advised that he had more discovery evidence to analyze from the Department of Social and Health Services.
Port Angeles police alleged that Bradfield strangled Pimentel in an apartment where his girlfriend, Kendell K. Huether, lived.
Huether, 25, is charged with first-degree rendering criminal assistance and two counts of witness tampering for allegedly helping Bradfield dispose of the body and for allegedly telling two men to lie about seeing Pimentel with an unknown man after her death.
She has pleaded not guilty.
Huether, who was released from jail in January, has been living in the Port Angeles area on electronic home monitoring and other conditions.
Her trial is set for July 30.
Court papers said Bradfield and Huether initially claimed Pimentel had fallen down some steps and died from a broken neck.
They said they panicked and decided to fabricate a story about Pimentel having run off with an unknown man.
In a follow-up investigation, Bradfield admitted to having strangled Pimentel in an Oct. 9 attack, police said.
