By Mallory Schlabach, Editor in Chief

No trial date has been set for former ACU student Brandon Woodruff, who was charged with one count of capital murder in October 2005 for the deaths of his parents at their home in Royse City.

Assistant District Attorney Noble Walker said because of numerous murder cases filed at the same time, the Woodruff case is still in the docket at the courthouse.

“The bad thing is for those types of cases—capital murder cases—it just takes a long time to gather all the evidence and for it to be processed,” Walker said. “Hunt County had a lot of murders pending in court at the time of the Woodruff murders, so it hasn’t reached the judge yet for a date to be set.”

Walker said the DA’s office is still in the discovery process of going through evidence and gathering evidence and talking to witnesses.

Walker said he couldn’t estimate when a trial date could be set, but when the case does go to trial, it would take between two and three weeks for a verdict to be announced.

He said Woodruff still remains in the Hunt County Criminal Justice Center, where he has been for the past 13 months.

Woodruff’s bail was set at $1 million last October, and it hasn’t been lowered despite attempts by his defense lawyer, Jerry Spencer Davis, in January to have the bail lowered to $100,000.

Woodruff’s parents—Dennis, 43, and Norma, 42—were found dead in their mobile home on Oct. 18, 2005, two days after they had been shot and stabbed. Because there were no signs of a forced entry, Chief Deputy Robert White of the Hunt County’s Sheriff Department, said last October that Woodruff was a suspect early in the investigation.

Woodruff was arrested at his aunt’s home in Texarkana after his parents’ funeral.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Woodruff began at ACU in fall 2005 as a freshman agribusiness major. He participated in Freshman Follies as a main character in a video, tying the freshman hall acts together just weeks before his arrest.