Case Put Off for Trucker Charged With 4 Killings

The state Supreme Court has delayed the case against a man accused of being a serial killer after determining that another case may affect his prosecution.

Wayne Adam Ford, 39, has been charged with the strangulation of four women he allegedly picked up along his trucking route through the state in 1997 and 1998. He has pleaded not guilty .

If convicted, Ford could face the death penalty.

The high court ordered a stay in the case after Ford’s attorney opposed prosecution efforts to consolidate the four cases in a single trial in San Bernardino. The killings occurred in different counties.

The court ordered the delay May 16 after it began considering a challenge to a state law allowing prosecutors to try cases spread across several jurisdictions in one trial. The case in question involves a Riverside man charged with torturing his 2-year-old son in one county and murdering him in another.

Attorneys in the Ford case will return to court in July to learn whether the high court will allow them to proceed. Ford is scheduled for trial early next year.

Ford, 39, surrendered at a Humboldt County sheriff’s station in 1999, more than a year after authorities found a woman’s corpse near Eureka. He reportedly confessed to that killing. He is also charged with killing two women who were found in Kern County and another in San Joaquin County.