From staff, wire reports
news@joplinglobe.com
LUBBOCK, Texas — Jury selection is under way in the capital murder trial of a former rural Pineville man accused of killing a pregnant woman, her husband and young son in 2005 in the Texas Panhandle.
Prosecutors in Texas are seeking the death penalty against Levi King, 26, who already is serving a life sentence for killing two people in McDonald County, Mo., the day before the slayings in Texas.
Jury selection began last week and could take several weeks, a Lubbock County, Texas, court official said.
King pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in April 2008 in the deaths of Orlie McCool and Dawn McCool in 2005 in McDonald County. He was assessed two life sentences without parole. The sentences are to run consecutively.
Orlie McCool, 70, and Dawn McCool, 47, were found dead in 2005 in their rural McDonald County home. Dawn McCool was Orlie McCool’s former daughter-in-law.
The victims were found by family members checking on their well-being about 10 a.m. Sept. 30, 2005, at 340 Pleasant Ridge Road in rural Pineville.
The victims were killed on Sept. 29, 2005.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors arrested King on Sept. 30, 2005, when he tried to return in Orlie McCool’s stolen pickup truck to the United States from Mexico at the international bridge at El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. King reportedly had various firearms in his possession, including a .380-caliber handgun that allegedly had been stolen from the McCool home.
King is now standing trial in connection with the Sept. 30, 2005, shooting deaths of Brian Conrad, 31; his pregnant wife, Michell Conrad, 35; and her son, Zach Doan, 14; all of rural Gray County, Texas. Michell Conrad’s 10-year-old daughter called 911 about 7:15 a.m. that day to report the shootings.
Missouri authorities said they believe King left the Pineville area after killing the McCools, headed south and then west on Interstate 40. The Conrad home is about 10 miles north of Interstate 40.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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