Judicial pretrial will begin next month for man charged in murder of Tess Richey

Man accused in Tess Richey murder appears in court Kalen Schlatter was charged with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Tess Richey in February.

A judicial pretrial will begin next month for the man accused of murdering 22-year-old Tess Richey last year.

The date was set at a court appearance Monday for Kalen Schlatter, who has been charged in connection with the November 2017 murder.

Richey was reported missing on Nov. 25, 2017 after a night out with a friend at a bar in the city’s Church-Wellesley Village neighbourhood.

Four days later, her mother, who had been searching for Richey with other family members, located her lifeless body in an exterior stairwell of a building under construction near Church and Dundonald streets, not far from where the young woman was last seen.

Police first said that Richey’s death was not considered to be suspicious but a post-mortem exam revealed her cause of death to be “neck compression.”

Investigators later released images of a man who was seen with Richey on the night she disappeared.

In February, 21-year-old Kalen Schlatter was charged with second-degree murder in Richey’s death.

The charge was subsequently upgraded to first-degree murder.

The pretrial for Schlatter, who was denied bail in August, is slated to start on Jan. 17.