Jury being picked for trial more than 50 years after woman’s death

LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — Jury selection continues in Louisiana in the second-degree murder trial of a man in his wife’s death more than 50 years ago.

Seventy-six-year-old Felix Vail is accused in the drowning death of his wife, Mary Horton Vail. Her body was pulled from the Calcasieu River in October 1962. He was indicted on the second-degree murder charge in 2013.

On Monday, the trial began with 11 jurors out of a prospective 36 being chosen - just shy of the 12 to be seated.

News outlets in Lake Charles report prospective jurors underwent hours of questioning from attorneys.

In November 2012, The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi, published a series about Mary Vail’s death and the disappearances in 1973 of Vail’s girlfriend Sharon Hensley and in October 1984 of his second wife, Annette Craver Vail.