The convicted sex offender accused in the 1985 rape and murder of 17-year-old Leslie McCray has opted for a bench trial, set for October.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Forty years after the murder and rape of a 17-year-old Jacksonville girl, her alleged killer is set to face trial – but not by a jury.
David Nelson Austin, 64, waived his right to a jury trial Wednesday, setting up a bench trial before Judge Meredith Charbula for late October.
The 1985 Christmas Eve killing of Leslie McCray sat cold for decades until a break in the case in 2021, when DNA at the scene of the crime was reportedly matched to that of a prisoner serving two life sentences in Michigan.
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Austin had moved to Michigan sometime after McCray’s murder and was subsequently charged with three felony sex crimes. According to the Michigan Sex Offender Registry, he was convicted on two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree in 1991 and one count of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree in 1997.
In McCray’s case, Austin was indicted for two counts of armed kidnapping, armed sexual battery and first-degree murder, and later extradited to Jacksonville.
The state is seeking the death penalty against him.
What happened to Leslie McCray?
According to accounts at the time, McCray’s 21-year-old boyfriend told police he was awakened around 3 a.m. Christmas Eve, 1985, to a man kneeling by his bed with a knife.
The boyfriend told police the man tied him up and took McCray out of their apartment on St. Johns Avenue in Avondale. The boyfriend told police he was able to free himself from the bindings and called police at around 6 a.m.
McCray’s body was found a few hours later on Old Middleburg Road, about five miles from the apartment. She had been raped and stabbed multiple times in her head, chest and neck.
Austin’s name was mentioned in police reports from the McCray case, but he was never considered a suspect or even interviewed, T.K. Waters said after the indictment, when he was Jacksonville’s interim sheriff.