WAYNE COUNTY, IL — A 26-year-old man charged with the murder of his 15-year-old girlfriend nearly 10 years ago is seeking to have his trial moved from Wayne County where the young girl’s body was found in a shallow grave years after her disappearance. Brodey Murbarger’s attorney filed a motion on his client’s behalf Tuesday.

Murbarger is 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.

The Court on Tuesday issued a protective order for Megan Nichols’ medical records.

A hearing on all pending motions in the case is scheduled for March 18 with a May 2 setting being eyed as a possible start date for a jury trial.