San Diego

A federal grand jury again indicted two people Thursday in connection with the 1974 slaying of a wealthy San Diego woman on a lonely Pacific atoll. The grand jury returned the new indictment against Buck Duane Walker, 47, and his former girlfriend, Stephanie Stearns, 37, accusing them of killing Eleanor (Muff) Graham. Graham and her husband, Malcolm, disappeared in 1974 on Palmyra Island, about 900 miles south of Honolulu. The indictment charges that the woman--whose skeletal remains were found in a metal box on a reef at Palmyra in 1981--was killed between Aug. 28 and Sept. 4, 1974, on the atoll. Her husband’s body has never been located. Authorities told the Associated Press that Walker’s trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 4 in San Francisco on a change of venue, and Stearns’ trial will follow Walker’s. Currently, Walker is serving an 18-year prison term for yacht theft and escape. Stearns was paroled after serving a prison term after being convicted in the theft.