CALGARY - For residents of Medicine Hat who awoke two years ago to learn details of the grisly slaying of a young family, the trial of Jeremy Steinke is expected to reopen old wounds -- but not necessarily bring healing.

"I think the citizens are a little bit left without closure from this horrible crime that plagued our city," said Norm Boucher, mayor of Medicine Hat, southeast of Calgary.

"(The trial) should have been here, in my opinion. This is where it took place."

Steinke's three-week first-degree murder trial was to begin Monday before a jury in Calgary Court of Queen's Bench.

The case was moved to Calgary after Steinke's lawyer argued successfully that intense media scrutiny of the case that drew headlines around the globe made it impossible for Steinke to get a fair trial in Medicine Hat.

Boucher was chief of police in Medicine Hat in April 2006 when a young boy walked over to a friend's house to call on him but instead saw through the window what he thought was a body.

Paramedics and police were called and found inside the bodies of an eight-year-old boy and his parents.

They can't be named to protect the identity of the family's daughter, who was 12 at the time. She was Steinke's girlfriend and was found guilty last year of three counts of first-degree murder after a trial in Medicine Hat.

She is serving a maximum 10-year sentence for young offenders as part of a rarely used intensive rehabilitation program.

Boucher said the trial will be difficult for emergency responders who were first on the scene.

"Time will probably fade some of the memory, but it will stay with you, it's in your mind forever -- particularly (for) the ones that had to go into that house, because the scene was very terrible."

He said residents in the city of 56,000 will have painful memories revived: "If it's in front of your eyes every day, as it was when it happened ... it's difficult to accept."

The six-man, six-woman jury panel that will hear the case was selected Friday.

Before selecting the jury, trial judge Adele Kent asked anyone who felt they had irreversibly made up their minds about Steinke's guilt or innocence based on media reports of the girl's trial to come forward and speak to her.

Law professor Sanjeev Anand said he's a little bit surprised the trial was moved to Calgary, since the publicity surrounding the case has radiated far beyond the original community.

"With mass communication being what it is today, and the Internet, to be perfectly honest with you, unless you're dealing with a very small locale with a very limited number of eligible jurors, the change of venue application really doesn't serve a great deal of utility," said Anand, with the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

If convicted, Steinke faces a life sentence with a minimum of 25 years behind bars before he is eligible for parole.

Two other girls were also charged in connection with the deaths. One, who was 15 at the time, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 20 months' probation.

The other, Kacy Lancaster, is facing accessory to murder charges and appears in court in December.