The March 5 retrial of Denny Ross has been moved to July after a judge granted a prosecution request for sophisticated DNA testing of 10 samples of forensic evidence from the 1999 slaying of Hannah Hill.The new trial date is July 6.Court records that prosecutors filed say the forensic evidence was in the “immediate proximity” of Hill’s body when police found her in the trunk of her car on May 26, 1999, a week after her mother reported her missing.Akron police found Hill’s body, naked from the waist down, in her gold Geo Prizm in front of a home on Caine Road in the Ellet area of the city.Calls from neighbors had attempted to alert police to the car’s whereabouts in the days leading up to the discovery of the body.Although the evidence to be tested was not identified in the latest round of court records, in a Nov. 28 hearing, Ross’ attorneys revealed that an unknown male pubic hair that investigators took from Hill’s shoulder had never been tested for DNA links to another suspect.Summit County Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter, who is handling Ross’ retrial, approved a defense request last month to have that sample, along with about 20 additional samples of evidence from various areas of the body and the car, submitted for complex DNA testing.The retrial appeared headed for certain delay then, but in a Jan. 24 hearing, the defense dropped its request for that form of testing.Hunter apparently approved the latest prosecution motion for a delay because the evidence to be tested is narrowly confined to a specific area in the broad pool of forensic evidence.Hill, who was 18, disappeared on May 19, 1999, after leaving her parents’ home in Kenmore for a late-night visit with Ross at his Springfield Township apartment.His first trial, in October 2000, ended in a mistrial over alleged juror misconduct after the panel had signed verdict forms acquitting him of aggravated murder, murder and rape.Both sides filed a lengthy series of appeals in state and federal courts, primarily over the constitutional issue of double jeopardy, until the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in December 2010 that Ross, now 32, must stand trial again.Ross is serving a 25-year prison sentence for the 2004 attempted murder and rape of another Akron woman while he was free on bond during the Hill appeals.Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or at emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com.