Trial continues in assault case

July 08, 2008 11:53 pm

— Jury trial will continue today for Jerry DeWitt Raney, who is charged with multiple counts of domestic abuse by strangulation and intimidation of a witness.
Raney, 44, also has other cases pending. He is accused of filing a claim on a car reported stolen that had been sold after the vehicle identification number had been switched, and in a separate case, he’s also been charged with planning or scheming to kill a number of people, including several law enforcement officers. He will stand trial for those charges at a later date.
Raney has been named by the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office as the chief suspect in the homicide of Raney’s 19-year-old stepdaughter, Sara Smart. Smart was reported missing in late January 2006 and was found Aug. 5, 2006, inside a barrel that had drifted onto the banks of a farm pond about five miles west of Haskell.
Raney has not been charged in Smart’s death.