The murder shocked residents of the quiet Ocean Park neighborhood.

ALFRED (AP) – Nearly a year after the body of a Canadian tourist was found off a boardwalk in Old Orchard Beach, the murder trial of Benjamin Humphrey is scheduled get under way Wednesday in York County Superior Court.

A police affidavit in the case indicates that Humphrey’s sister later confided that she saw her brother kill a man.

The slaying of Derek Rogers, 47, of Russell, Ontario, shocked residents of the quiet Ocean Park neighborhood where Rogers’ family has vacationed since the 1920s.

Rogers, a trombonist who played for the Canadian Armed Forces, apparently liked to walk on the beach late at night.

On July 31, 2002, he encountered a group that included Humphrey, his sister Angela and his girlfriend Aimee Pelletier, according to state police.

Angela Humphrey told a state police detective that she, her brother and Rogers were drinking beer on a bench and talking about Humphrey’s Sioux heritage, according to the affidavit.

Angela Humphrey told police that Rogers called her brother a “squaw.” She knew there would be a fight, so she walked away and then looked back to see the two men fighting, she said.

She told detectives she saw her brother pick up several handfuls of sand and put them in Rogers’ face, nose and mouth.

Rogers’ body was later found off the Randall boardwalk with at least one blow to the head and his body partially covered by sand.

Angela Humphrey’s former sister-in-law, Penny Anderson, told police that the defendant’s sister twice told her that she saw Benjamin Humphrey kill a man, saying it was not an act of self defense.

Benjamin Humphrey, 30, of Presque Isle, and Pelletier were arrested in a Rapid City, S.D., shopping mall on Aug. 14, 2002, after Pelletier’s mother alerted police that they wanted to surrender.

Pelletier remains free on $20,000 bail on charges of attempted theft, assault and hindering apprehension.

Jury selection in the case is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning. The trial is expected to continue into the middle or end of next week.