A trial date has been set for the man accused of killing Nathan O’Brien and his grandparents, Alvin and Kathy Liknes, last summer.

Douglas Garland is facing three counts of first-degree murder is the death of the little boy and the Liknes’.

The trio went missing from the Liknes’ Parkhill home in June 2014 and were reported missing by Nathan’s mother when she went to pick him up from the residence after a sleep over and found an empty house.

Police launched an extensive search of the Calgary area and were eventually led to acreage near Airdrie belonging to Garland’s parents.

Garland, 55, was arrested and charged with the death of the three even though their bodies have never been found.

He was originally charged with second-degree murder in Nathan’s death but a provincial court judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to upgrade the charge to first-degree murder.

Defence attorney, Kim Ross says the long delay before the trial is not unusual for a case of this magnitude.

“For a trial of this length and this complexity, that’s not unusual. As you heard, there were other trials that were going pretty close to that date today being scheduled,” said Ross.

“It’s real hard on the families, it’s extraordinarily hard on the families and of course we have witnesses that are getting up there in age as well so it is a concern that we’re now looking at 2017 for trial dates but that seems to be the way of our trial scheduling for Court of Queen’s Bench and the Chief Justice has spoken about the issue at length so I won’t bother going into it but it is a long period of time until 2017,” said Crown Prosecutor Shane Parker.

The trial will get underway on January 16, 2017 and is expected to last about five weeks.