Two professional bodybuilders sought by Nevada authorities in the slaying and burning of their live-in personal aide said in a Massachusetts court Tuesday that they would fight legal transfer to their home state to answer charges there.
Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan pleaded innocent to fugitive charges in Stoughton District Court and were ordered held without bond pending a Jan. 12 status hearing on authorities' attempts to return them to Nevada.
A phone call seeking comment Tuesday from Titus' Massachusetts attorney Robert George, was not immediately returned.
In Las Vegas, bail was set at $13,000 on Tuesday for Anthony Gross, who is accused of being an accessory in the killing of Melissa James.
Titus, 40,and Ryan, 33, were arrested Friday at a grocery store parking lot in Stoughton by federal agents and local police who had received a tip that the married couple was in the area.
The body of James, 28, was found Dec. 14 in the trunk of Ryan's abandoned and burned-out Jaguar sedan outside Las Vegas. Authorities say Gross bought a can of gasoline and followed in his pickup as Titus allegedly drove the Jaguar to a remote desert highway, took the gas and set the car on fire.
Mother calls for justice in Vegas slaying
Gross, 23, told police he drove Titus back to Las Vegas, but they did not discuss what happened. He was arrested last week in Las Vegas.
Titus, who won a 1996 bodybuilding championship and competed in Mr. Olympia events, faces state charges in Nevada including murder, accessory to murder and third-degree arson, according to a warrant issued Dec. 20 in Las Vegas.
Ryan, a past Fitness America and Fitness International winner and Fitness Olympia runner-up, is charged with accessory to murder and third-degree arson.
In interviews with police before they left Nevada, neither Titus nor Ryan admitted involvement with James' slaying. But Titus told Las Vegas police he'd had a secret romance with James, court records show.
Titus later told a business partner that he intended to meet a friend in Boston, liquidate his assets and leave the country, police said.
