Missing Women Cases Admissible

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — A state district court judge has ruled that evidence related to two missing women is admissible in Felix Vail's second-degree murder trial.

The 74-year-old Vail is charged in the death of his wife, Mary Horton Vail, in October 1962. He is also alleged to be the last person to see two other women who were reported missing. Sharon Hensley, a girlfriend, is believed to have been missing since 1973, and Annette Craver Vail, another wife, was reported missing in 1984.

The American Press reports defense attorney Ben Cormier asked Judge Robert Wyatt to disallow the information.

Cormier says neither woman has been declared legally dead, and there should be no criminal presumption of death.

Prosecutor Hugo Holland said Hensley and Annette Vail disappeared under bizarrely similar circumstances.