HALIFAX -- The case of two people accused in the slaying of Loretta Saunders has been adjourned until next month to determine how much time will be needed for a trial.

Twenty-six-year-old Blake Leggette and 28-year-old Victoria Henneberry face first-degree murder charges in the death of Loretta Saunders.

Terry Sheppard, Leggette's lawyer, says the pair will be tried by a judge and jury and it is likely to begin sometime in the fall of next year.

Sheppard says he expects the trial will take at least a month.

Leggette's case arose in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax prior to Henneberry's because of a no-contact order between the two accused, and it was then that a pre-trial conference was set for Sept. 19.

The matter will also return to court on Sept. 25 when trial dates are expected to be set.

The body of the 26-year-old Saunders, an Inuit woman from Labrador, was found in a wooded area off the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick two weeks after she was reported missing from her Halifax apartment in February.

Saunders was a student at Saint Mary's University in Halifax and focused her studies on missing and murdered aboriginal women.