Man’s trial delayed in park hikers’ deaths

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Questions about DNA evidence have delayed the trial of a 36-year-old Maryland man charged with the 1996 murders of two female hikers in Shenandoah National Park.

Darrell David Rice is accused of torturing and slashing to death Lollie Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, and Julianne Williams, 24, of St. Cloud, Minn.

Investigators began to look at Rice in 1997 when he was caught trying to run a female bicyclist off a road in the park. They’ve entered into the court record a mountain of circumstantial evidence and interviews with jailhouse informants.

Rice’s trial was scheduled to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, Va., but it was delayed until Nov. 3.

A judge ordered the two-week delay so both sides could have more time to investigate biological evidence.

Rice’s lawyer, Fred T. Heblich, claims that genetic tests on cloth gags used on the women excluded his client.