MONTROSE – Jeremy Hodges, 28, of Ridgway, pleaded not guilty Monday to first-degree murder in the 2006 death of Steven Kublin, who was 50 when he was killed.

Kublin’s burned and bludgeoned body was found near the Montrose landfill in November of 2006. Hodges was arrested in connection with the crime in May of 2008.

Montrose County District Judge Jeff Herron set a trial date for Hodges of Dec. 1 through Dec. 11, with a pretrial conference set for 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 3.

Public Defender Harvey Palefsky told the judge that Hodges had agreed to waive his right to a speedy trial in order to have more time to prepare a defense. Assistant District Attorney Jerry Montgomery agreed to the waiver.

Palefsky requested a hearing concerning the state statute for using voluntary intoxication as a defense because of “some vagueness in the statute.

“I want to make sure we comply and can use that defense,” he said.

Herron set a hearing concerning the statute for 3:30 p.m. on April 28.

After Hodges’s arrest last year, District Attorney Myrl Serra said there were many leads in the murder case, including information received from a citizen in the weeks leading up to Hodges’s arrest.

Kublin was last seen outside of Delta on U.S. Highway 50. A few days later, on Nov. 9, 2006, a bicyclist found his body on a trail just off Landfill Road.

Known as a “free spirit,” Kublin was originally from Massachusetts and traveled around the country. He was reported to have stayed with friends in the Paonia area who belonged to the Rainbow Family of Living Light, a counterculture group dedicated to peace, love and nonviolence.

According to Kublin’s father, Bennett Kublin, his son had been hitchhiking around the country, working odd jobs, for about 30 years. He was a peaceful soul, said his father, and often wrote poems and short stories for his friends and family.

The Boston Globe reported on Nov. 20, 2006, that Kublin had been living in Cambridge, Mass., and went to Colorado in July earlier that year to help with the fruit harvest.

The article quoted Kublin’s father as saying that his son graduated from Andover (Mass.) High School and had been traveling since the age of 29, but came back to Massachusetts for family events.

He said his son was a quiet, law-abiding man who “wouldn't hurt a fly.”