PAYETTE, Idaho (Court TV) — An Idaho murder case scheduled for trial this fall is moving to a new location.
Stacey Wondra sits in court during his preliminary hearing on March 3, 2026. (Court TV)
Stacey Wondra, 33, is charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of 5-year-old Michael Vaughan, who disappeared from his home on July 27, 2021.
Wondra has pleaded not guilty to the charges; in interviews with police, shown during a dayslong preliminary hearing in March, Wondra maintained he had nothing to do with taking the child but said that his wife and roommate were to blame. Wondra conceded that he never called the police, but said that he wanted no part of the crime. He described hearing his wife and roommate duct-tape the child to a chair while Michael screamed for his mother. Wondra told officers that when he asked why his wife took the child, she blamed him for not earning money and said their roommate planned to try to sell the victim.
MORE | Defense: Accused killer was only a witness to Michael Vaughan’s murder
Michael’s body has never been found. In 2022, investigators theorized that the child had been killed and buried at the Wondra home before his remains were removed to a new location. Dogs brought in to search for the child tracked a scent from the home to a house approximately half a mile away, where Wondra lived at the time.
In an order filed on Wednesday, Judge Brent Whiting formally moved the trial out of Payette County; the trial will now be held approximately 45 minutes away in Canyon County. A second order from Whiting instructs that Wondra will be kept at the Payette County Jail during the pendency of the case; separate orders will be filed for the defendant to appear at future hearings in Canyon County.
Wondra’s trial is currently scheduled to begin on Sept. 14.
