The disappearances of two women related to Felix Vail may be introduced when he goes to trial for the murder of his wife in 1962, an appeals court said Wednesday.

Vail, 75, is not on trial for the disappearances of Mary Craver Vail and Sharon Hensley, but prosecutors want to introduce their disappearances as evidence of similar crimes. Felix Vail is being prosecuted for the death of his first wife, Mary Horton Vail, 22. He is charged with second-degree murder.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal upheld a ruling by state district court Judge Robert Wyatt to allow the disappearances in as evidence.

“In this case, the relevance does not center on similarity of the act but on the results,” 3rd Circuit Judge John D. Saunders wrote in the opinion.

“The 3rd Circuit opinion is very articulate and sets forth very logical, rational reasoning,” Calcasieu District Attorney John DeRosier said in a statement. “The ‘doctrine of chances’ certainly applies here, and the jury should be made aware of the unexplained disappearances of the defendant’s subsequent girlfriend and wife.”

Defense attorney Ben Cormier and prosecutor Carla Sigler argued their cases before the 3rd Circuit on Sept. 24. Cormier will ask the state Supreme Court to examine the issue.

Mary Horton Vail was found dead in the Calcasieu River. Felix Vail said she drowned while they were running trotlines. Authorities investigated, but a 1960s grand jury declined to make a decision.

Hensley, a girlfriend of Felix Vail, has not been seen since 1973. Felix Vail, believed to have been the last person to see her alive, said she left him in Florida to go sailing around the world.

Annette Craver Vail disappeared in 1984. Again, Felix Vail is believed to have been the last person to see her alive. He said he dropped her off at a bus station in St. Louis.

Vail’s version of events in the disappearances of Hensley and Mary Craver Vail are “remarkably similar,” Sigler told the appeals court in September. “That they went to find themselves and go sleep with a bunch of men is essentially what it boils down to. Even if that were true, what are the odds that they would drop off the face of the Earth as if they never existed?”

Cormier argued that he is being put in a position of having to prove that the two women are alive.

Southwest Louisiana authorities began investigating Mary Horton Vail’s death again in 2013, after an investigative report by a journalist in Mississippi. Vail was indicted in June 2013.(Rick Hickman/American Press)

Rick Hickman