By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post

WAKEENEY — Following a two-day preliminary hearing at Trego County District Court, District Judge Glen Braun decided Friday there is sufficient evidence to take the state’s case against Scott Bollig to trial.

Bollig, 30, WaKeeney, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of former Wakeeney resident Naomi’s Abbott’s unborn child.

Abbott, who worked for the Trego County Sheriff’s office at the time, reportedly suffered a miscarriage Jan. 31.

Bollig is accused of crushing and sprinkling an abortion-inducing drug, mifepristone, on pancakes Abbott ingested. He was charged Feb. 20.

The state’s first and last witness of the day Friday was Hays pathologist Dr. Lyle Noordhoek, who performed the autopsy on the fetus and determined the gestational age to be “eight to 10 weeks.”

Noordhoek testified the fetus was developing normally, “which led me to believe some sort of process was interfering with the loss to oxygenation” to the placenta leading to the placenta to begin detaching from the uterine wall.

He said he received information from law enforcement before the exam that Abbot’s blood serum sample — taken at Gove County Hospital at the request of local law enforcement — tested positive for mifepristone.

Noordhoek said he determined the cause of death was consistent with what would happen if a pregnant women was given mifepristone.

Upon questioning from defense attorney Dan Walter, Noordhoek said the symptoms could have also been caused by  a woman who is overweight,  taking antidepressants or birth control pills at time of pregnancy, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or has suffered a blunt force trauma.

Bollig’s defense lawyers then proceeded to call 11 witnesses to the stand — most were investigators in the case or members of law enforcement.

One dispatcher from the WaKeeney Police Department and Abbott’s ex-husband were also called to the stand.

Bollig’s arraignment has been set for Sept. 9

Check Hays Post for more as the story develops.