Murder Case Moves Ahead

A 23-year-old Pocatello man has been sent to district court to face a charge of first-degree murder in the New Year’s Day stabbing death of a man who lived in his apartment building.

Magistrate Ron Hart sent Augustus Joseph Isaak to district court Thursday after a preliminary hearing in which prosecutors played a videotape of an interview with the defendant. In it, Isaak told a detective he killed Jack Herridge, 53, because he believed Herridge had given him AIDS.

The preliminary hearing originally was scheduled in February, but was postponed until Isaak was declared mentally capable of assisting in his own defense.