Stepdad to be tried for murder

By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer

July 02, 2009 10:20 am

— Jerry Dewitt Raney was bound over for trial on first-degree murder Wednesday after the longest preliminary hearing the judge ever presided over.
“I believe there is more than enough evidence ... this is going to be a trial,” said Special District Judge Robin Adair.
Raney, 46, will stand trial in the 2006 death of his stepdaughter, Sara Kendall Smart, 19. The transcript of the preliminary hearing that ended Wednesday is more than 2,330 pages long, Adair said.
“I’ve never known of a transcript of a preliminary hearing that has come anywhere close to that,” said Muskogee County District Attorney Larry Moore.
“We’re pleased with the outcome — there is sufficient evidence for him to be bound over.”
John Echols, Raney’s indigent defense lawyer, had only one statement after the ruling: “The race is not to the swift, but to those who endure to the end.”
Echols had argued again Wednesday that a sloppy investigation had left plenty of room for reasonable doubt that Raney is the person who killed Smart.
Echols had consistently hammered home there was no direct evidence against Raney — nothing but circumstantial evidence.
“Circumstantial evidence is a type of evidence — not inferior evidence,” Adair said in making his ruling.
Being circumstantial doesn’t make evidence “any less strong, any less potent or any less accurate,” Adair said.
Family members of Raney weren’t happy — but family members of Smart were.
“I think he was railroaded from the judge all the way down,” said Raney’s first cousin, Debbie Cagle. “I think he’s been railroaded and I really don’t think he did it.”
She said she’s visited him every week and knows him well, being able to tell when he’s telling the truth.
“If he were guilty — I would know it,” she said.
Smart’s former stepmother, Christene Smart-Leader, said the judge’s decision is something Sara Smart’s family has to celebrate.
“I’m happy it’s finally going to trial,” she said. “I expected it and wanted it and needed it. I’m so emotional — one huge part is out of the way and now we can move to the big leagues.”

In court

WHO: Jerry Dewitt Raney.
CHARGED: In Muskogee County District Court with first-degree murder of his stepdaughter, Sara Kendall Smart, 19.
DETAILS: Raney told police he left Smart at a McDonald’s in Muskogee early Jan. 30, 2006, and never saw her again. He reported her missing the next day. Her body was discovered in a 55-gallon drum floating in a pond near Haskell on Aug. 6, 2006.
WHAT’S NEXT: Jerry Raney will be back in Muskogee County District Court at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 5 for a district court arraignment, at which time he will enter a formal plea.

Reach Donna Hales at 918-684-2923 or Click Here to Send Email

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.