Sat, Jul 04 2009
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Published August 07, 2008 10:03 am - DA expects decision soon in teen’s death Sara Smart remembered by family, friends By Donna Hales Phoenix Staff Writer You don’t get over the death of a loved one, “you just get used to it,” said Terry Smart, the grandfather of homicide victim Sara Kendall Smart. He made the statement Wednesday evening before balloons were released in front of the Muskogee County Courthouse. Friends and relatives of the 19-year-old who went missing Jan. 30, 2006, and whose skeletal remains were found Aug. 5, 2006, met in memory of Sara. Her remains were found in a 55-gallon barrel that had drifted onto the banks of a farm pond about five miles west of Haskell. She had died of strangulation. “I asked the Lord to forgive the one who did this — I have no animosity toward Jerry,” Terry Smart said. He was speaking of Sara’s stepfather, Jerry DeWitt Raney, the man county prosecutors have identified as the main suspect in Sara’s death. He said he had no doubt Raney killed his granddaughter. Raney, 44, has never been charged in the death. Muskogee County District Attorney Larry Moore said Wednesday afternoon a decision will be made very soon about charging someone with first-degree murder in Sara’s death. Moore has painstakingly studied a more than 750-page investigative report on Sara’s death. “There are voluminous reports and amounts of information,” Moore said. Smart asked the Lord to bless the ones who organized the letting of the balloons and the candlelight vigil. Sara was afraid of Raney and had stayed at Terry Smart’s house for about a week shortly before she died, her grandfather said. “Then she decided to go back and live with her mom,” he said. According to police reports, Sara and her 21-month-old son had been living with her mother, Laura Raney, and her stepfather, Jerry Raney, in Haskell. 
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