Felix Vail, accused of killing his wife, is charged with second-degree murder. (Representational Image)
A half-century after a 22-year-old woman died in southwest Louisiana, her husband is going on trial, accused of killing her.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the second-degree murder case against 76-year-old Felix Vail. He has asked the judge to move his trial out of Calcasieu (KAL-kuh-shoo) Parish, where Mary Horton Vail died in October 1962.
Vail said she'd fallen into the Calacasieu River. He was arrested, but the coroner ruled the death an accidental drowning and a grand jury declined to indict. The Mississippi native was freed.
The current coroner reopened the investigation after The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi, published a series about Mary Vail's death and the disappearances of two other women close to Vail in 1973 and 1984.
Vail is charged with second-degree murder. Conviction would require life in prison.