WAYNE COUNTY, IL — A January jury trial has been scheduled in the case of a 25-year-old Indiana man who is accused of murdering his 15-year-old girlfriend in 2014 and then hiding her body in a shallow grave in rural Wayne County. Brodey I. Murbarger appeared via Zoom for a brief pre-trial conference in Wayne County Circuit Court Tuesday where attorneys agreed to holding a January 18th, 2022, jury trial in the case.

According to court information, Murbarger strangled and suffocated Megan Nichols to death in her Fairfield home on July 3, 2014, and later buried her body in a shallow grave in a rural part of Wayne County. Murbarger had lived in Fairfield, and met Nichols at New Hope School, where he was a senior and she was a sophomore. Nichols was considered a missing person until her remains were found in a field outside Boyleston, Illinois in 2017.

Murbarger was arrested in 2020 while working in Indiana. He’s remained in the Wayne County Jail since that time with bond set at $300,000 cash.