The Superior Express -

Aubrey Trail, who chose not to go through with a state court appeal of his death sentence for the killing and dismemberment of Sydney Loofe, has gone forward instead with a federal challenge.

In it, his federal public defenders out of Kansas City, Missouri, raised two dozen claims, among them that Trail’s sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment because he is “severely mentally ill” and his previous counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue earlier.

Attorney Laurence Komp, chief of the Capital Habeas Unit, said: “Mr. Trail’s case provides an example of what happens when the death penalty is obtained in proceedings that are bereft of the process that is constitutionally required. The means matter in a justice system — the ends should always be the product of a fair and meaningful process. Here, that has not occurred.”

In 2021, Trail was sentenced to death for Loofe’s murder. Her body was found north of Edgar.