Two men accused of killing Kimberly Harvill, whose body was found in Gorman two years ago, appeared in court Wednesday.
Joshua Aaron Robertson, 28, and Alex Richard Valdez, 29, both from the Fresno area, appeared in Department 105 of the Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles for a pretrial hearing.
Both men were ordered to return to court for another such hearing on Oct. 23, said Greg Risling,  spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Robertson and Valdez are charged with murdering Harvill. A motorist found her body lying in the brush on Aug. 14, 2016, along Gorman Post Road, north of Highway 138, in Lebec, near the Kern County line. She had been shot.
They also face a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait, which refers to the act of hiding and waiting for an individual with the intent to kill that person or inflict serious bodily harm to that person. This makes the pair eligible for the death penalty.
A Fresno woman – who was arrested with Robertson in August 2016 in connection with the same killing – pleaded no contest a year ago to kidnapping three young children of her half-sister, Harvill.
Brittney Sue Humphrey, 23, was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Humphrey and Robertson were alleged to have kidnapped the three young children of Kimberly Harvill. The three children were ages 5, 3 and 2 when the crime occurred.
The children were later found abandoned in New Mexico at a motel.
Humphrey and Robertson were arrested in Colorado in October 2016 on suspicion of murdering Harvill and then kidnapping Harvill’s three children.
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