HUTCHINSON, Kansas -- A preliminary hearing is underway in Hutchinson for two men charged with killing a 27-year-old woman.
Billy Joe Craig Jr., 48, and Charles Christopher Logsdon, 32, are charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jennifer Heckel last June. Heckel was with her 5-year-old son when she was killed inside her home. The boy was not hurt; he alerted neighbors to what had happened.
Monday morning four witnesses took the stand including two Hutchinson Police officers who were among the first on the scene, and a KBI investigator who helped to collect evidence and process the scene.
Also taking the stand was Karra Branton, a woman who said she had known both Craig and Logsdon for 15 to 20 years.
Branton is currently in custody for violating her parole on a 2007 drug conviction.
She testified that in the days prior to Heckel's murder, Logsdon was hatching a plan to rob a drug dealer and planning to use $800 in counterfeit cash to buy some meth.
Branton said that when they couldn't come up with the counterfeit money, the men made a plan to commit an armed robbery against the dealer.
"He was just going to arrange it," Branton said. "We were going to meet her at a Kwik Shop and do counterfeit money, but it wasn't really a robbery. It was more a counterfeit, a scam. And then Chris got to talking more about robberies and guns and that's when I left."
Prosecutors believe the two went to the wrong home and shot Heckel by mistake.
Branton claims the two men shot Heckel in the back and head, in the kitchen of the home, while Heckel's child watched television.
The judge expects the preliminary hearing to take much of the week. At the end of testimony the judge will determine if there's probable cause that Craig and Logsdon committed the crime. If he decides there is, he'll set the case for trial.
