GOSHEN, N.Y. (AP) — A murder trial is getting under way for a registered Rockland sex offender accused of murdering an aspiring dancer from Texas whose body was found in Pennsylvania more than a year after she went missing in New York.

Jury selection is set to begin today in Orange County Court in the murder trial of Michael Mele of Wallkill. The victim, Laura Garza [pictured], met Mele at a Manhattan nightclub in December 2008 and disappeared afterward. Her body was found in April 2010 near Scranton, Pa.

Garza had moved to Brooklyn from McAllen, Texas, five months before her disappearance.

Mele was listed as a sex offender in Rockland after he was convicted of exposing himself and masturbating in front of women in the Palisades Center mall parking lot during December 2006 and April 2007. He also was accused of touching women in the mall parking lot.

A Clarkstown judge sentenced him to six years probation in March 2008 for his actions in the mall parking lot.