“We still think we can get a fair trial,” said Ben Murray, a court-appointed attorney from Hebron.

Saline County District Judge Vicky Johnson ordered that Trail be handcuffed “for obvious reasons” for the rest of the trial.

Trail and his girlfriend, Bailey Boswell, 24, both face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in the death and dismemberment of Lincoln store clerk Sydney Loofe.

Loofe, 24, disappeared on Nov. 16, 2017, after arranging a date, via the Internet dating app Tinder, with Boswell.

Shortly afterward, Trail and Boswell took to social media to maintain that they were not involved. Some weeks later, Trail called reporters to say that he had killed Loofe, but that it was an accidental suffocation during a “sexual fantasy.”

The outburst in court on Monday — after Trail had sat quietly in his wheelchair during the first week of the trial — added just one more strange twist to the trial, which is scheduled to last two more weeks.

The fact that the disruption happened in the presence of the 12 jurors and three alternate jurors raised questions about whether jurors could remain objective, and whether the judge might have to order a mistrial.