Aubrey Trail's lawyer: He may have an alibi

Aubrey Trail told reporters 15 months ago that he accidentally killed Sydney Loofe. But now he says he may have an alibi.

In a court filing Wednesday, his court-appointed lawyer notified prosecuting attorneys that he may present evidence that suggests Trail was not present when Loofe was killed, a complete change of story from what Trail told several reporters in phone calls from jail in February 2018.

“It wasn’t meant that she was to die,” Trail told The World-Herald back then, maintaining that Loofe, a 24-year-old store clerk from Lincoln, was choked to death by him with an electrical cord during a sexual fantasy.

Ben Murray, Trail’s defense attorney, said Thursday that some new evidence had “popped up” that suggests that Trail was somewhere else when Loofe was killed. She disappeared after arranging an online date with Trail’s girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, on Nov. 15, 2017.

By state law, if a defendant plans to introduce evidence of an alibi, they must notify the court a month prior to a trial. Murray said he wanted to preserve the option of presenting the alibi evidence, so he filed the motion.

Both Trail, 52, and Boswell, 25, face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in Loofe’s slaying. Loofe’s body, which had been dismembered, was found about 60 miles west of the Wilber, Nebraska, apartment where the slaying allegedly took place.

Trail is also accused by prosecutors of attempting to solicit someone to kill via social media beginning about four months prior to when Loofe disappeared.

Both Trail and Boswell have pleaded not guilty. Trail’s trial is scheduled to begin June 17 in Wilber; Boswell’s trial is scheduled Oct. 15.