One of four men facing charges related to the November murder of a Mankato man is scheduled to go to trial early next year.

Assistant Minnesota Attorney General Al Zdrazil, who is prosecuting the four men, also has filed a notice saying he will be seeking enhanced penalties because of aggravating factors.

The victim, 20-year-old Alberto Samilpa, had been shot in the head, stabbed in the neck and his body had been set on fire before authorities found his remains on Cottonwood County Road 3, several miles north of Windom, on Nov. 19. An Iowa family traveling north on Highway 71 for the Thanksgiving holiday noticed the fire, which was also burning a 1999 Porsche that had been stolen from a rural Mankato residence two days earlier.

In each of the four cases, Zdrazil filed a notice saying Samilpa was treated with “particular cruelty for which Defendant should be held responsible because Defendant along with others set the victim’s body on fire, left it to be discovered by strangers, in a mutilated condition, and prevented him from being viewed by his family.”

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