PETERSBURG, Ind. (AP) - Two former state police investigators were arraigned Friday along with three other people on charges they committed perjury by covering up evidence in a 1988 slaying.

The former investigators, James Verle and Larry Eck, appeared in Pike Circuit Court to face felony perjury charges. A judge entered not guilty pleas on their behalf and for three others, Charity Delaney, Steven Hill and Billy Corlett.

The perjury charges stem from grand jury interviews in September and this month in which Eck and Verle denied being told then-Pike County Prosecutor Mark Sullivan was a suspect in the unsolved June 1988 murder of Rick Deffendall at his home near Oakland City.

All five people were indicted Thursday on felony perjury charges related to that case.

The indictment says Verle and Eck misled investigators by removing Sullivan from a list of potential suspects in the killing.

It also says they ordered a subordinate to exclude information that linked Sullivan romantically to Deffendall's ex-wife from state police files. However, the document does not suggest Sullivan was involved in Deffendall's death, but rather faults the investigators for failing to pursue him as a suspect.

State police never interviewed Sullivan in the case, according to the indictment.

The 22-page indictment, filed Tuesday, says Verle, then a lieutenant, removed Trooper Frank Coleman from the investigation after learning he had included Sullivan on a list of people to be interviewed about the murder in the county. The decision stemmed from a need to &#8220maintain good relations with the Pike County prosecutor's office," the indictment said.

It also said leaders at the Evansville State Police post ordered that Sullivan not be investigated as a suspect and that information about him, including a polygraph report, was not to be included in the police file. Verle and Eck, then a sergeant, had been informed that Sullivan and Deffendall both had been involved with Deffendall's ex-wife, Debbie, the document states.

Delaney is accused of at first testifying under oath that a man told her he burned clothes that contained evidence in the killing, but then later said the man never told her that.

Stacy Birk, officer manager and legal assistant for the Pike County prosecutor's office, said that man &#8220is part of a circle of people who knew the murder victim and probably has information regarding the killing."

Birk said Sullivan, Pike County's prosecutor from 1983 to 1990, is not considered a suspect in Deffendall's death.