A year and nine months after authorities found the charred remains of Brenda Baber, 56, buried in the garden of her Kingfisher home, the trial begins for her accused murderer.

Barring any additional pandemic delays, jury selection begins Monday in the trial of Steven Stricker, 63, Baber’s live-in boyfriend who is charged with first degree murder and desecration of a human body.

District Judge Paul Woodward will hear the case in Kingfisher County District Court, with assistant district attorneys John Salmon and Eric Epplin representing the state and Oklahoma City attorney Jarrod Stevenson representing the defendant.

Associate DistrictJudge Lance Schneiter ordered Stricker bound over for trial at the end of a preliminary hearing in September 2019.

The trial itself was delayed a number of times, first due to closure of the courthouse at the start of the pandemic and then because of a pending appeal of Woodward’s decision to grant a defense motion to dismiss one alternative count of felony murder occuring during the course of a kidnapping.

The state had alleged that Stricker committed the crime of kidnapping by barring Baber’s exit from the bathroom where she ultimately died during the course of an altercation. The Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately upheld dismissal of the kidnapping allegation.

Charges remaining against Stricker include first-degree murder with deliberate intent, or in the alternative, second-degree murder, and desecration of a corpse, Salmon said.

Stricker allegedly admitted during a law enforcement interview that he did dismember Baber’s body and burn and dispose of her remains, but said he did so after she died accidentally by falling and striking her head on the bathtub during an argument.