Kevin Sweat: An Okfuskee County judge has ordered the first of his two pending murder trials to be moved to another county.
A man who is accused of killing two Weleetka girls in 2008 will soon face trial in Creek County on charges that he murdered his former bride-to-be.
An Okfuskee County judge ordered the first of two murder trials pending against Kevin Sweat moved to Creek County, court records filed Tuesday show.
The order by District Judge Lawrence Parish states that he moved the trial from Okemah to Creek County's Bristow courthouse because of intense pretrial publicity and Okfuskee County's population of slightly more than 12,000 people, only half of whom might be eligible to serve on the jury.
Creek County, with a population of nearly 70,000 people, would have a potential jury pool five times larger, ensuring that Sweat would have a chance of receiving a fair trial, Parish wrote.
The trial is scheduled to begin June 10.
Sweat, 27, was charged in 2011 with first-degree murder in the death of his former fiancée. Ashley Taylor disappeared in July of that year when the two were supposed to travel to Louisiana to get married.
He also faces trial on first-degree murder charges in the slayings of Skyla Whitaker, 11, and Taylor Paschal-Placker, 13, who were slain outside Weleetka in June 2008. The girls' killings shocked the rural community and received national media attention.
At a March 28 arraignment in Okfuskee County, attorneys entered a plea of not guilty on Sweat's behalf in the girls' killings. No change of venue has been ordered in the Weleetka girls' deaths.
Defense attorney Peter Astor had argued that the two murder trials his client faces are "intertwined" and that intense media coverage of the Weleetka girls' killings had unfairly prejudiced potential jurors in Okfuskee County.
Although the trials are separate, "in a way, they're going to be tied together" because of evidence prosecutors plan to use that appears to link the killings, Astor told the Tulsa World in March.
Changes of venue are rare in Oklahoma but are allowed upon a judge's finding that "the minds of the inhabitants of the county ... are so prejudiced against the defendant that a fair and impartial trial cannot be had," according to state law.
Changes of venue granted in Oklahoma, but rarely
In Oklahoma, a change of venue is allowed if the defendant petitions the court and the request is supported by affidavits from at least three residents in the county, according to state law. Prosecutors are given an opportunity to respond to such requests, and then a judge rules on the motion.
Perhaps the state's most well-known change of venue case involved the trial of Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted in federal court in Denver of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.
Judges have granted a change of venue and some other recent state-court cases, too:
2007: District Judge Candace Blalock ruled that Kevin Ray Underwood's murder trial in the death of a 10-year-old girl would be moved from McClain County to Cleveland County. Underwood was convicted of luring neighbor Jamie Rose Bolin into his apartment in 2006, where he beat, suffocated and sexually assaulted her. A poll conducted by his defense team found that more than three in four McClain County residents believed that he killed the girl. Prosecutors argued against the venue change but were overruled. Underwood was sentenced to death, but no execution date has been set.
2004: Creek County District Judge Joe Sam Vassar granted a defense request for a change of venue in the double-murder trial of Scott Eizember. He was accused of fatally beating A.J. Cantrell, 76, and fatally shooting his wife, Patsy Cantrell, 70. Eizember led authorities on a multistate crime spree and a 37-day manhunt that received wide publicity. Even though his trial was moved to El Reno, defense attorneys argued on appeal that jurors were biased against him. His death sentence was upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2007.
2004: District Judge Jefferson Sellers granted a change of venue from Pawnee County for two men who were charged in the 2001 killing of Pawnee County Sheriff Dwight Woodrell Jr. A Tulsa County jury convicted James Craig Taylor, who was sentenced to life in prison with parole possible. Sellers accepted a plea of no contest to a second-degree murder charge from co-defendant Justin Lee Walker and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
Cary Aspinwall 918-581-8477
cary.aspinwall@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: 1 of 2 trials for suspect in killings is moved
