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Joseph Tejeda gets new August trial date in Breanna Wood murder case

The accused, who is now 32 years old, has been in jail for this crime since he was 26. He is the inmate who has been in the Nueces County Jail the longest.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Joseph Tejeda, the man accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and leaving her remains in a box near Robstown in 2016, is now scheduled to face trial Aug. 15.

The date was set during a status hearing by visiting judge Manuel Banales on Friday. He was previously scheduled to go to trial in January, but his then-attorney Eric Perkins asked to be removed from the case and his current attorney Sam Fugate was assigned to defend him.

Fugate said he isn't able to say much about Friday's proceedings because a gag order is in place.

Tejeda has been in the Nueces County Jail since Oct. 2016 and is the facility's longest serving inmate. When he was charged with Wood's death in 2017, he already was in the jail for an unrelated charge. His bond for the murder was set at $1 million.

The arrest affidavit sworn out in 2017 states that Tejeda is accused of shooting Wood in the head and killing her, but not before breaking both of her arms. 

The arrest affidavit in the case went on to accuse Tejeda of hiring a friend to dispose of Breanna Wood's body. 

She was found in a 16 x 24 ft. box, wrapped in heavy plastic, near an abandoned building in Bluntzer. 

Investigators said they found her after receiving a tip from another inmate. Breanna Wood had been missing for 85 days before being found.

Previous 3NEWS reporting shows the death penalty was taken off the table in 2019 for Tejeda after prosecutors said they reached the decision along with Breanna Wood's mother, Fallon.

In the last year alone, Tejeda has had three lawyers -- Fred Jimenez, Perkins and Fugate. Jimenez tried having the charges against Tejeda dismissed in June of 2022 based on how long he had been incarcerated, saying that his client's right to a speedy trial had been violated.

The case had been mired in motions and delays for years before an original trial date was set in July 2018. A second date was set for April 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic further delayed the trial.

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