December 14, 2016
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
The Texas man that allegedly went on a Christmas-time murder and shooting spree a year ago tomorrow (Friday) along the interstate spent today inside a Custer County Courtroom.
37-year-old Jeremy Doss Hardy of Pasadena is charged with a number of felonies including two counts of murder in the first degree. He’s in court with his attorneys for a preliminary hearing that will last today and tomorrow.
Hardy is charged with murdering 45-year-old Jeffrey Kent Powell of Clinton and 63-year-old Billie Jean West of Lone Wolf.
Powell, a father of two, died in his car with his wife in the passenger seat after Hardy allegedly opened fire upon their vehicle.
West’s body was found in her vehicle on I-40 at Exit 84, near Weatherford’s Airport Road. She was pronounced dead upon arrival after being rushed to nearby Weatherford Regional Hospital by first responders after a day of Christmas shopping in Oklahoma City.
Hardy also is charged with assault with a deadly weapon, five counts of use of a vehicle in discharge of a weapon, one count of eluding a police officer and one count of driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.
He was also in court in April when Special District Judge Donna Dirickson ordered DNA tests in his case to continue even though it might consume the entire DNA that’s available which might make it impossible for the defense to later hire its own analyst to do an independent test.
Testimony was heard in April that four swabs of DNA were available, two from the gun’s trigger and two from a back strap and that all or a portion of it could be consumed if the tests were allowed.
Dirickson ruled that the state could continue with its testing but ordered that the process be videotaped with narration explaining what was being done at each step.
Hardy is represented by three lawyers from the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System’s Capital Trial Division.
Hardy was previously convicted for injuring a child under the age of 15, related to an incident in which he grabbed the throat of a woman carrying her 2-year-old son in her arms and began slamming her into furniture and dragging her across the residence, according to a Pasadena, Texas newspaper.
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