Navy Officer Pleads Not Guilty in Wife’s Death : Arraignment: Parents of victim, who was found buried in husband’s back yard, vow to obtain custody of her three children, assets.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Leonard E. Eddington II pleaded not guilty Monday at his arraignment in Municipal Court on charges that he murdered his wife, whose remains were discovered in the back yard of the couple’s Jamul home.

The 43-year-old Eddington was arrested Dec. 21 on suspicion of murdering Vickie Eddington, 29, who disappeared July 30, 1987. His arrest came the day sheriff’s deputies unearthed the woman’s bones in a ravine behind the home the couple had shared for 12 years.

During the arraignment, Eddington’s attorney, Thomas Warwick, asked to delay the Feb. 13 preliminary hearing date while Eddington determined whether he could afford to pay for legal representation. Warwick was ordered to inform the court Jan. 21 whether he will defend Eddington.

Meanwhile, Vickie Eddington’s parents attended the arraignment and said they will try to obtain their daughter’s assets and legal custody of their three grandchildren, now in the care of Leonard Eddington’s mother and sister. The parents also plan to file a wrongful-death suit.

Alice Vess, the slain woman’s mother, said she and her husband have filed a petition to overturn a 1989 divorce granted to Leonard Eddington from his wife, who was missing at the time. The divorce, in effect, gave him the couple’s assets.

The parents want half of the assets placed in a trust for the Eddingtons’ children, now 14, 10 and 8 years old.

“As far as Leonard is concerned, I’d like to see him wiped out of any property at all and would like to see all the assets changed into a trust for the children,” said Elmer Vess, the dead woman’s father.

“I’m mad at him, yes, but I feel sorry for him more than anything else,” Vess said.

However, if the Vesses succeed in seizing Eddington’s assets, he may have trouble keeping Warwick as his private attorney.

“I’m sure anything that impacts my client’s assets could impact his ability to retain me, but he has good family support, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to work something out,” Warwick said.

Eddington told police at the time of his wife’s disappearance that she was on her way to a nighttime job at Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa. Under questioning by authorities, Eddington has insisted that he had nothing to do with his wife’s disappearance.

For more than four years, members of Vickie Eddington’s family have suspected she was killed by her husband. Shortly after she disappeared, Eddington refused to let family members walk in a ravine behind the couple’s home and made little effort to search for her, family members and friends said.

Alice and Elmer Vess, who live in Idaho, said they fear Eddington may try to flee; he was released from County Jail early Sunday after posting $400,000 bail.

“I think justice will be served. If he’s guilty, he will pay,” Alice Vess said. “We want to see him put away.”