The Kansas Attorney General’s Office is handling two first-degree murder cases from 2010 in Barton County District Court. But while the capital murder case against Adam Joseph Longoria continues to grab headlines, less is known about the first-degree murder case against Shawn Ney.

Both cases are in pre-trial stages.

Longoria is charged with murdering 14-year-old Alicia DeBolt on or about Aug. 21, 2010, after attempting to rape her. He has entered a not guilty plea. His next pretrial hearing, which includes a preliminary hearing on charges that have been amended but still seek the death penalty if Longoria is found guilty, is set for Oct. 5.

Ney is charged with the first-degree murder of Steven Calderwood, and the attempted first-degree murder of Ney’s wife of 10 years, Sarah Ney, on July 10, 2010. Defense attorney Robert Anderson filed notification last year that he expects to base his defense on Ney’s mental state, and would review hundreds of pages of medical records.

According to Sarah Ney’s testimony at the preliminary hear, she and 32-year-old Shawn argued all the time last July, and she told him she was leaving him to be with her brother-in-law, Steven Calderwood. In a confrontation, Sarah Ney was shot in one leg. Calderwood was shot in both legs and did not survive.

Ney stood mute at his arraignment, and Senior Judge Barry Bennington entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf.

Ever since a pretrial hearing that was handled via telephone last February, there have been no court appearances for Ney. A June hearing was canceled, and at this time another hearing has not been scheduled.

Jeff Wagaman, deputy chief of staff at the Office of Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, had no new information on the Ney case. "No court dates have been set," Wagaman said Tuesday. "The case remains under review. Assistant Attorney General Travis Harrod of Derek Schmidt’s office has responsibility for the case."

Both the Ney and Longoria murder cases are both being handled by the Attorney General’s Office at the request of Barton County Attorney Douglas Matthews. Meanwhile, the Barton County Attorney’s Office is working on several other felony cases. Three cases scheduled for hearings in the coming week include:

• Joseph Jeffery Rykiel —The man arrested after 15-year-old Jessica Cheyanne Shearer died on July 4, 2011, has been charged with aggravated indecent liberties with a child, criminal sodomy with a child 14-16 years old and aggravated endangering a child. Rykiel, 30, was scheduled for a preliminary hearing this Thursday, but that has been postponed at the request of the prosecution. Rykiel’s preliminary hearing is now set for 9 a.m. on Sept. 29.

• Seth Lee Converse Stevens, a former Ellinwood teacher charged with electronic sexual solicitation of two teenage girls, is scheduled for a preliminary hearing at 1 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 25. Stevens, now living in Topeka, has been charged with using a cell phone or other electronic means to solicit two 15-year-old girls to commit unlawful sexual acts in 2009.

• Braeton Joshua Monk, who is 21 or 22 years old, is awaiting sentencing after entering a plea of "no contest" to three counts of electronic solicitation. Monk was also charged with soliciting young girls, via text messages. He was originally charged with seven felonies last year, after a woman discovered inappropriate text messages on her 12-year-old daughter’s cell phone. Monk was scheduled to be sentenced on July 22, but that has been changed to 9 a.m. on Sept. 6.