At a hearing here on Wednesday morning, Circuit Judge Tracy Storie granted a motion by prosecutors to force Spears to submit a hair sample for DNA testing. Investigators will compare that hair with hairs found on Rowan's body.

Spears' case is in Pulaski County instead of Barry County to try to ensure a fair outcome. Rowan's disappearance from her home, the search for her, the discovery of her body, and the charges against Spears and his friend, Chris Collings, received extensive coverage in November 2007.

The other circuit judge in the 25th Circuit, Mary Sheffield, is handling Collings' case in Rolla. Collings’ trial is set for March 2010. Sheffield ordered Collings to submit a hair sample for DNA testing.

It's not unusual for death penalty cases to take two years or more to get to trial because of judges' and courtrooms' schedules and the need to give prosecutors and defense attorneys as much time as possible to prepare their cases for juries that will make life-or-death verdicts.

Before Spears entered the courtroom in shackles, law enforcement officers emptied the courtroom and looked under and in the benches for anything that shouldn't be there. It’s part of the tight security surrounding these cases.

”There's going to be a lot of discovery that has to occur. There’ll be depositions of almost all the witnesses and there are numerous witnesses, including FBI, local law enforcement, sheriff's deputies from three different counties,” said Barry County Prosecuting Attorney Johnnie Cox.

It all takes time to hear from those who removed dozens of bags of evidence from Rowan's home in Stella, where she was kidnapped. Among the things found -- a key element – is a hair on Rowan's body discovered during her autopsy. The state believes it's likely a match to one of the two defendants.

Spears' defense attorneys requested the judge allow them to have their own experts look at any DNA evidence that the FBI could destroy in the process of testing. Storie granted that motion.

"That's fine. That's fine,” said Cox.

Defense attorneys declined to do an interview after the hearing.

Cox doesn’t think the two trials being so close together will affect the outcomes. He said that's how it worked out with scheduling.

However, the prosecution team is the same for Spears and Collings, so it will be interesting to see how Collings trial turns out since it's first. The defense attorneys are different for the two men.

Court documents show each man admitted to police last November that he killed Rowan. One said it was outside a trailer, the other one said it was inside.

Wednesday was first time that Rowan's mom, Colleen, was not in the courtroom for hearings in the two men’s cases. She divorced David Spears after he was charged with murder.