Trial In Alleged Facebook Murder Case Opens

A man accused of using Facebook to lure a teenager to her death is going on trial in Maine.

The jury is set to hear opening statements in the murder trial of Kyle Dube, a 21-year-old accused of killing 15-year-old Nichole Cable.

Dube is accused of setting up a fake Facebook profile to set up a meeting with the teenager.

Police say Dube had told others that he had intended to stage Nichole’s kidnapping and then make it look like he had come to her rescue.

But in the botched plan he killed her in May 2013, according to police. The girl died from asphyxiation.

Dube denies wrongdoing.

According to local reports, Superior Court Justice Ann Murray has stopped defence lawyers from naming Dube's former girlfriend as an alternative suspect. They say the girlfriend disliked Nichole because she believed the girl and Dube were seeing each other.

But the judge ruled that the defence had failed to establish a connection between the murder and Dube's girlfriend. The prosecutors said Dube's girlfriend had an alibi.

The trial begins in Bangor on Monday and is expected to last two weeks.