Nebraska court says death row inmate can’t be own lawyer

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A man sentenced to death for the killing and dismemberment of a Lincoln woman he met on the date app Tinder will not get to serve as his own attorney in his automatic appeal.

The Nebraska Supreme Court last week rejected Aubrey Trail’s plan to fire his team of attorneys and represent himself in his appeal, the Omaha World-Herald reported. Trail, 55, had argued that his court-appointed attorneys have refused to support his request to sell some $25,000 in antiques and rare coins and give the money to a memorial fund set up for his victim, 24-year-old Sydney Loofe.

Trail and his girlfriend at the time of the killing, Bailey Boswell, already are under court order to pay $400,000 to a Kansas couple who fell victim to a rare coin scam pulled off by Trail and Boswell.

Trail was convicted in 2019 of first-degree murder and criminal conspiracy to commit murder in the 2017 murder of Loofe, whose body was cut into 14 pieces with the help of Boswell, wrapped in garbage bags and dumped in ditches along country roads in rural Clay County. Trail was sentenced to death earlier this year.

Boswell, 27, also was found guilty last year of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in Loofe’s death. She’s scheduled to learn on Nov. 8 whether she’ll be sentenced to death or life in prison.