Trial date set for Levi Chavez case

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A trial date has been set for a former Albuquerque police officer nearly five years after he allegedly shot his wife in the mouth with his department-issued handgun and tried to make it look like a suicide.

The Albuquerque Journal reports State District Judge John W. Pope set Levi Chavez's trial Monday for July 9. Pope told Chavez, his attorney and prosecutors to be back on April 30 to discuss where the case stands.

Chavez is charged with murder. He had been an Albuquerque officer for nine months when the Valencia County Sheriff's Office started investigating him a month after Tera Chavez's death on Oct. 21, 2007.

A civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Tera Chavez's family has suggested Chavez killed his wife because she told friends he staged the theft of the couple's truck.

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Information from: Albuquerque Journal