COURTS: SCOTT CITY MAN'S TRIAL DELAYED UNTIL 2001

OTTAWA, Ill. -- A LaSalle County judge agreed to delay the murder trial of a Scott City, Mo., man while his defense attorney seeks additional witnesses.

Richard Meyer's trial likely won't start until sometime in January, said Brian Towne, first assistant state's attorney for LaSalle County. It had been scheduled to begin Monday, but the public defender's office filed a motion for an extension.

The judge will conduct a status hearing with attorneys on Jan. 5, at which time a new trial date should be set, Towne said.

Meyer faces two counts of first-degree murder, one count of concealing a homicide and one count of criminal damage to property in the July 11 death of Ernestina M. Hinojosa, 43, of Kennewick, Wash.

Police think Meyer met Hinojosa in a motel bar, then a few hours later took her to his room where she was killed. Meyer told police he put her remains into the coolers and dumped them in a cornfield five minutes from his motel in Peru, Ill.

One of the victim's brothers, Pete Hinojosa, will come to the trial from Washington state as a witness along with his dead sister's oldest daughter. Another sister will accompany them, Hinojosa said.

Attempts to reach Meyer's mother, Anna Marie Urhahn, on Wednesday were unsuccessful. Urhahn had previously said that if her son had regularly taken medication for his bipolar disorder, he never would have hurt anyone.