Bail Set for Navy Officer in Slaying
Bail has been set for a Navy officer accused of killing his wife by clubbing her on the head and then burying her in a ravine behind their eastern San Diego County home.
Lt. Cmdr. Leonard E. Eddington II, 38, was formally charged with murder, but Municipal Judge David Danielsen postponed his arraignment until Monday to give him time to retain a permanent attorney. Danielsen set bail at $400,000 despite objections by Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Dusek.
Eddington had told sheriff’s investigators that his wife had left him and abandoned their three children while the couple was preparing to divorce after a stormy 10-year marriage. She left for work at Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa on July 30, 1987, but her abandoned car was found four miles away with a flat tire.
Recent aerial photographs of Eddington’s property indicated that dirt had been piled in the ravine nearby, prompting deputies to seek a search warrant for the first time, prosecutors said.
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