PORT ANGELES — The teenager accused of drowning her infant son more than a year ago will spend at least a few more months in juvenile detention before going to trial.
Lauryn L. Last, 17, is being charged as an adult with first-degree murder in connection with the December 2008 death of her newborn son.
She pleaded not guilty in January 2009 and has maintained her innocence.
Defense attorneys say the scheduled Jan. 25 trial won’t happen.
“The defense is just talking to different expert witnesses, now that we have all the information from the state, and seeing what kind motions we’re going to be making next,” said Suzanne Hayden, who with John Hayden is defending Last .
Defense experts still need to study slides containing tissue samples before the trial can start.
John Hayden has said the trial will probably happen in the spring, or summer at the latest.
A status hearing is set for Friday at 1:30 p.m. in Clallam County Superior Court.
Prosecutors allege that Last drowned the infant in a toilet and placed the body in a trash container outside her father’s Port Angeles residence.
The trash was taken to the Port Angeles waste transfer station, then to another transfer station near Tacoma.
The body of the baby, Thomas Last, was found by authorities in a 30-ton trash container six days after his death.
Defense attorneys say that Lauryn Last didn’t know she was in labor and that she went into shock after giving birth.
She was arrested at her father’s home on Jan. 2, 2009, and remains in custody at the Clallam County Juvenile Services Detention Facility in Port Angeles.
The baby’s father, Gregory Greenway, 37, of Pueblo, Colo., pleaded down to criminal attempt to commit sexual assault on a child for assaulting Last, then age 15, in 2008.
Greenway was sentenced to four years in prison last month in Pueblo District Court.
He faced a potential life sentence on the original charge of criminal attempt to commit sexual assault on a child.