Two murder trials set in Douglas County court | News

WATERVILLE – Douglas County Superior Court jurors are expected to face two murder trials in the next three months.

On Thursday, Judge Brian Huber set a Dec. 2 trial date for Ashton Bunting Jr., the 23-year-old East Wenatchee man accused of murdering his partner Synthia Ring, 28, and abandoning their four-year-old child last June alone in the same apartment with her body while he fled to Ohio. He allegedly left notes admitting to killing Ring.

Bunting has been held in the Chelan County Jail since the U.S. Marshals Service returned him to the Wenatchee Valley in late July.

Earlier this year, 35-year-old Travis Earl Collins of rural Leavenworth was arrested by sheriff's deputies in connection with the Feb. 1 killing of Julio Cesar Garcia-Ramirez, allegedly over a cocaine transaction gone wrong. Garcia, 35, was found shot next to a vehicle along Rock Island Road.

Huber set Collins' trial date for Jan. 6 this week. He is also in jail on a $2 million bond.