A Sublette County judge on Friday determined there is enough evidence in a case against a man accused of murdering a Jackson woman on the side of Highway 191 in 1984 to forward it to 9th District Court.

Troy Dean Willoughby, 45, watched with interest but without expression as 9th Circuit Judge Curt Haws told him there was probable cause in the case.

Willoughby is being held in the Sublette County jail on a $1 million bond. He is charged with first-degree murder.

He’s accused of shooting and killing Lisa Ehlers — who owned the Sweetwater Restaurant in Jackson with her husband, Peter — on June 21, 1984.

Willoughby pleaded not guilty when he first appeared before Haws in March.

Sublette County Attorney Lucky McMahon called one witness to the stand at Friday’s preliminary hearing.

Capt. Brian Ketterhagen, of the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office, testified that he interviewed Willoughby’s ex-wife Rosalie Hosking and Willoughby’s friend Tim Bayse and  they both said they were in the car with Willoughby and witnessed him shoot Ehlers almost 25 years ago.

Ketterhagen said Hosking and Bayse told him they were on their way home to Daniel from a party in Jackson early that morning. Ketterhagen said Bayse told him he saw Willoughby drag Ehlers out of the car, that they had an altercation and that Willoughby then retrieved a gun from under the driver’s seat and shot Ehlers “two or three times.”

Ketterhagen also said he interviewed Willoughby’s son, who claimed to have heard a confession from his father.

Willoughby’s court-appointed attorney, Kerri Johnson, asked Ketterhagen what Willoughby told him in their two taped interviews.

Ketterhagen said Willoughby told him Bayse was driving and that Ehlers was dead and lying on the ground outside her car when they arrived at the scene.

Under questioning from Johnson, Ketterhagen said authorities suspected drugs could have had something to do with the shooting and that Ehlers was found with drugs when authorities discovered her body. Ketterhagen didn’t say what type of drugs.

Ketterhagen told Johnson that both Bayse and Hosking had been interviewed before but he couldn’t remember when. He said it could have been during the initial investigation in 1984 or it might not have been until the 1990s in a subsequent investigation. Ketterhagen did not interview them until Sublette County Sheriff Wayne “Bardy” Bardin asked him to reopen the case in October.

Bayse and Hosking never told authorities the version of events that led to Willoughby’s March 2 arrest, Ketterhagen said.

Willoughby was in custody on unrelated charges in Helena, Mont., until late in March. Willoughby’s initial appearance in 9th District Court was not yet scheduled.