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CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) — A judge has given the FBI more time to pull data from cellphones collected during its probe of a Gary man accused of killing seven women.
Darren Vann's attorneys had argued in a motion filed last month that authorities were being slow in providing them with data collected from three cellphones collected in the FBI's investigation into Vann, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported .
Defense attorney Gojko Kasich told Lake Criminal Judge Samuel Cappas on Friday that he and other attorneys for Vann, 46, had subsequently been provided data from two of the cell phones, but that the FBI was still collecting data from a third cell phone.
Kasich asked Cappas if he would not exclude that evidence at trial, whether he would set a reasonable date for when the information should be provided to defense attorneys. The judge said he didn't want to second-guess the FBI's methods, but agreed to issue an order for the federal agency to provide a report on the investigation's status by April 20.
Vann is scheduled to stand trial Oct. 22 in the strangulation deaths of 19-year-old Afrika Hardy and 35-year-old Anith Jones.
Hardy's body was found in a Hammond motel room in October 2014. After Vann was arrested in her death, he allegedly admitted to killing six other women, including Jones, whose body was found in an abandoned Gary house.
Trials in the five other slayings haven't been scheduled.
Vann defense attorney Matthew Fech had argued in a motion last month that prosecutors' subpoenas for records from the Lake County Jail, the U.S. Marines and the Ohio high school that Vann attended were "overly broad."
But Cappas ruled Friday that prosecutors can use broad language in subpoenas for records from those three entities.
Vann was discharged from the Marines after serving from 1991 to 1993. He attended Lima Senior High School in Lima, Ohio, before enlisting.
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Information from: The Times, http://www.nwitimes.com
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