These three murder trials won’t happen in 2017

The cases against the two teenagers charged with killing Alexander “Alex” Cherp during a drug deal gone bad in Lakewood Ranch won’t go to the trial until at least next year.

The same goes for the man charged with killing Palmetto resident Tricia Freeman, his girlfriend’s mother.

Alan Baily, who turns 18 later this month, and Jose Victor Hernandez Jr., 19, are each charged with first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery in Cherp’s slaying.

If convicted, Hernandez could be sentenced to death or life in prison. Baily, however, would be automatically sentenced to life in prison if convicted because he was a juvenile at the time of the slaying.

Roy Nichols Jr., 26, is charged with second-degree murder and grand theft of a motor vehicle in Freeman’s death in March. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

On Thursday morning, all three men appeared before Circuit Judge Brian Iten for case management hearings during which attorneys involved agreed none of the cases could be ready for trial this year. Trial dates could be set later this year.

Baily is scheduled to next appear in court on Aug. 17. Hernandez and Nichols are scheduled to appear Sept. 28.

All three men also waived their rights to a speedy trial.

Cherp, 23, was found by a security guard just before midnight on Feb. 4 outside of his silver Mercedes in Lakewood Ranch’s Greenbrook Park — less than a half mile from the home of Baily’s parents. Cherp was taken to Tampa General Hospital where he later died.

Detectives said they later learned from Cherp’s girlfriend that the victim was known to buy marijuana from someone named “Alan.” The phone number Cherp had used leading up the drug deal and his death was traced back to Baily. A witness in the case told detectives that Hernandez admitted to planning to rob Cherp, shooting Cherp and then telling Baily to “finish him off.”

In the other case, police were first called to Freeman’s home on March 15 when friends became concerned that she had not been seen or heard from. Attempts to find the missing woman quickly developed into an investigation that would end with Freeman’s car being found abandoned in a park in Ashland, Ky. the day after she was reported missing, and her daughter, Kayla Colyer, 21, and Nichols being found less than 48 hours later in nearby West Virginia.

Nichols admitted to killing Freeman when he went to her Palmetto home alone and “lost it,” police said, but details of how she died have not been revealed.

Colyer is charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle, accessory to murder after the fact and tampering with evidence. She is next scheduled to appear in court on June 28.

This story was originally published June 8, 2017 at 1:53 PM with the headline "These three murder trials won’t happen in 2017."