Abuse trial under way

By Liz McMahan
Assistant City Editor

July 09, 2008 11:59 pm

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Amanda Raney said Wednesday she stayed with her husband, Jerry Raney, even after he assaulted her several times because she loved him and hoped he would change.
Her testimony came on the third day of Raney’s jury trial on three counts of assault and battery by strangulation, intimidation of a witness and assault and battery in the presence of a minor.
If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
“You want him to go to the penitentiary?” defense attorney Donn Baker asked Amanda Raney.
“Yes,” she answered, breaking into tears. “It’s not what I want, it’s what has to happen. I wanted him to love me, not hurt me.”
She said there were several occasions before she left Raney in October 2006, that Raney choked her until she was unconscious.
His daughter, Molly Raney, told about one incident where she was sitting at the table eating cereal when “Jerry was mad at her and he pushed her down.”
She said when her mother came to pick her up that day, Jerry Raney through a brick through the car’s windshield and her mother had to leave.
“Do you love your dad?” Baker asked Molly Raney.
“Not really,” she answered.
“He wants you to know that he loves you and, no matter what happens, he will always love you.”
As Amanda Raney left the courtroom, Assistant District Attorney James Walters offered Jerry Raney a tissue. He took it and buried his face in it, then wiped away tears.
The prosecution paraded a half-dozen witnesses to the stand Wednesday afternoon. Among them was Josie Merreighn, Amanda Raney’s half sister.
She said on several occasions she had told Amanda Raney she needed to get out of the abusive relationship.
Neither Merreighn nor any of the others said they had ever seen Jerry Raney strike Amanda Raney. Some of them said, however that they had seen marks on her neck after several of the incidents.
Brooks Shaw, Amanda Raney’s father, said he had told Jerry Raney to not assault his daughter.
“After she went back home the first time (Dec. 29, 2006), I told him that if she was going to stay with him, he just needed to keep his hands off her,” Shaw testified. “He said he would.”
Raney offered to let Shaw hit him or “punch him out.”
Shaw said he declined, telling Raney that wouldn’t solve the problem.
Although he has not been charged, Jerry Raney remains the state’s main suspect in the death of Sara Smart, 19, whose remains were found in August 2006 stuffed in a barrel floating on a farm pond.