Judge: Man can be tried in wife’s killing

NEW LONDON, Conn.—A judge has found there is enough evidence to try a Mystic man for murder in the 2002 death of his wife.

Prosecutors said Charles Buck clubbed his wife, Leslie, with a length of wire, causing a fatal fall down stairs in their house. They said his motive was an obsession with a woman whom he’d given hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts.

His wife died two days after escaping a kidnapper, who was allegedly a friend of Buck’s.

Buck’s attorney asked for a probable cause hearing, saying the evidence against Buck was only circumstantial. But New London Superior Court Judge Susan Hardy ruled Thursday that there was enough evidence to continue.

Buck’s attorney entered a not guilty plea for Buck and called the case “very defensible.“