Olathe ? A college music professor, whose first murder trial ended in a hung jury, will return to court next month for allegedly strangling his former lover.

A Johnson County judge said Thursday that two weeks have been set aside for David Lee Stagg’s trial, which is scheduled to begin Feb. 26.

Stagg, 59, a former music professor at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of William J. Jennings, 51, who was found April 25, 2004, lying face down on a floor in his Shawnee home, his neck wedged in the curl of a leg on a wrought-iron bird cage.

During the first two-week trial, two experts testified that DNA found under Jennings’ fingernails came from someone other than Stagg.