The trial for a Camdenton man charged with killing his next door neighbors - a mother and daughter - has been moved to Laclede County.
The defense attorney for Steven Ray Endsley, 54, requested a change of venue to Laclede County during a case review Monday at the Camden County Courthouse, according to court records. Judge Stan Moore sustained the request and canceled the previously set trial for May 1, 2017, in Camden County.
Endsley was arrested Sept. 3 in the alleged double homicide of 27-year-old Danielle M. Smith and her mother, 61-year-old Teresa A. Jackson, following a weeklong investigation of two bodies found in debris of a mobile home fire in Camden County.
Smith and Jackson's bodies were discovered in the remains of their burned trailer home south of Camdenton on the morning of Aug. 29, according to a news release from the Camden County Sheriff's Office.
Endsley was their next door neighbor and, according to witnesses, had been in an ongoing disagreement with Smith over her sexual orientation, according to the news release. The FBI assisted the Camden County Sheriff's Office in investigating the possibility of the murders being a hate crime linked to that disagreement.
Endsley is charged with two counts of class A felony first-degree murder, two counts of felony armed criminal action, one count of class B felony first-degree burglary and one count of class C felony second-degree arson.