OKEMAH - In an apparently unprecedented move, the state of Oklahoma will hold a single jury trial for two separate murder cases that happened three years apart because of the evidence binding them.
Kevin Sweat will face a combined trial for the deaths of his former fiancee and two Weleetka girls, an Okfuskee County judge ruled Wednesday.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
District Judge Lawrence Parish noted that he researched Oklahoma case law and could not find "any cases that have been joined with this large of a gap in time."
But he said he ordered a combined trial because for the defendant and the victims' families, "this has dragged on long enough already."
Sweat was scheduled to face trial next month in the 2011 killing of his fiancee, Ashley Taylor. Now the trial will begin in January.
Sweat has remained in jail since his arrest in 2011. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
Although the decision delays the trial for Taylor's killing, it speeds up the time frame for the trial in the 2008 slayings of Skyla Whitaker, 11, and Taylor Paschal-Placker, 13, both of the Weleetka area.
The girls were gunned down on the side of a road in rural Okfuskee County, and the case garnered national attention for years while remaining unsolved.
The cases were joined at the request of Sweat and his defense attorneys, who said their client would be better served to have one trial, one jury, one venue and one sentencing.
"I recognize that it is a bit unprecedented to join cases this far apart chronologically," said Gretchen Mosley, one of Sweat's three court-appointed attorneys.
But it was in Sweat's "best interest to tell a complete story in both defenses at one time," she said.
Parish had ruled previously that evidence in the Weleetka case could be used in the trial regarding the slaying of Ashley Taylor.
Mosley argued that the judge's decision to allow that evidence from one trial into the other made it "mandatory" to try them together.
"We want to face it head on, with all the constitutional protections that go with that," she said.
That means that if a jury were to acquit Sweat at the trial, the constitutional protection commonly called "double jeopardy" would likely prevent the state from being able to try him again for either killing.
Prosecutor Maxey Reilly said the state did not object to combining the trials, but she was concerned about the lack of a precedent in Oklahoma case law for joining separate murder cases that occurred so far apart. She also wanted assurances that Sweat would not later claim that he objected to combining the cases.
Sweat stood before the court and stated that he agreed with the decision to merge the trials.
A key piece of evidence that Parish had ruled admissible is a gun case that state troopers found in Sweat's car in 2009.
The case was for a Glock model 22 .40-caliber gun that authorities believe was used to kill the Weleetka girls, though the gun has never been found.
Both girls were shot multiple times, with evidence indicating that a .40-caliber pistol and a .22-caliber gun were used.
At a preliminary hearing, investigators traced ownership of the Glock from an Okemah gun store to the police officer who said he sold it to Sweat after meeting him in a McDonald's drive-through.
OSBI agents had previously questioned Sweat about the girls' killings. But it was not until September 2011, when he was being held in connection with Taylor's disappearance, that authorities got what they believed was Sweat's confession.
During an interview, he told an OSBI agent he was driving on a rural Okfuskee County road in June 2008 when he pulled over, got out of his car and was approached by "two monsters," according to court records. Sweat told the agents he "panicked," grabbed a .40-caliber handgun from between the seats of his car and "shot the monsters."
Taylor, his former fiancee, was last seen July 15, 2011, after she told her family she was going to Louisiana with Sweat to get married.
Authorities believe that she was killed on or around July 17.
Sweat reportedly told family members that Taylor had threatened to tell people he killed "those girls" if he broke up with her.
The combined murder trial is set to begin Jan. 27, 2014, in Creek County District Court, Bristow division.
The judge ordered the trial moved to Bristow because of intense pretrial publicity and the potential difficulty of seating a jury in the sparsely populated Okfuskee County.
Cary Aspinwall 918-581-8477
cary.aspinwall@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: One trial due for 3 slayings in 2008, 2011
