Posted 8:08 pm Sunday, January 06, 2008
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Update: Suspect Charged In ‘Brutal’ Slaying
By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer
A woman and her boyfriend fled their home Saturday morning and flagged down a police officer after the woman's son asked the couple to go into the garage to see what he had done. What they saw Smith County Sheriff officials say, is the bloodied body of 25-year-old Christopher Lee McCuin's former girlfriend.
Lt. Larry Wiginton said the murder of Jana Shearer, 21, was especially brutal and was not carried out quickly.
Staff Writer
A woman and her boyfriend fled their home Saturday morning and flagged down a police officer after the woman's son asked the couple to go into the garage to see what he had done. What they saw Smith County Sheriff officials say, is the bloodied body of 25-year-old Christopher Lee McCuin's former girlfriend.
Lt. Larry Wiginton said the murder of Jana Shearer, 21, was especially brutal and was not carried out quickly.
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"He didn't just kill her and that was it," he said. "This murder went on for awhile and it was pretty brutal and there was some evidence of some really weird stuff, but we can't confirm any of that right now."
Gathered behind the yellow crime tape, residents of the usually quiet Wellington Place subdivision located off Texas Highway 64 west talked among themselves about what could have possibly happened inside the brick home at 423 Princess Place.
Gathered behind the yellow crime tape, residents of the usually quiet Wellington Place subdivision located off Texas Highway 64 west talked among themselves about what could have possibly happened inside the brick home at 423 Princess Place.
McCUIN
But the brutality of the crime could not have been guessed.
"I didn't even know anything was going on until I looked out of my window and saw a bunch of police with their guns drawn in my yard," next door neighbor Pam Hightower said. "This is really scary that this happened next door."
Officials at the scene said SWAT officers responded because McCuin had barricaded himself in the home, but Sgt. Mike North was finally able to talk the man out of the home without further incident. He was taken into custody on an outstanding felony retaliation warrant.
Once in the back of a patrol car, McCuin became violent and kicked out the side window before being put in additional restraints and transported to the Smith County Jail where he remains on the earlier warrant and a charge of capital murder with a $2 million bond.
"I about passed out when that glass shattered because I thought somehow he had gotten a gun and was shooting," Ms. Hightower said.
Wiginton said detectives were still working to locate where the murder actually took place.
"It didn't happen in that garage, but we haven't found where he killed her and we don't know exactly when he killed her," he said.
Wiginton said Shearer's body was sent to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas for an autopsy.
"I'm not a doctor, but there was a lot of blunt force head trauma and some other injuries that we are still investigating," he said.
Wiginton said that McCuin had gone to the deceased woman's home and it is believed she was taken against her will and this was the reason for the capital murder charge.
"We are really early into this investigation and we will know more as the night goes on. I would imagine that we will be out late tonight and then back out first thing tomorrow."
Wiginton said he believed McCuin drove to his mother's home with the dead woman in the backseat of his extended cab pickup just to show his mother that he had killed the woman.
"The mother and her boyfriend said they left the home when he said come look what I have done and they saw the body. I don't blame them," he said.
Dressed in a house robe, pants and slippers McCuin's disheveled mother showed back up at the scene Saturday afternoon to get some medications.
Ms. Hightower and other neighbors said they believed the man may have been on drugs and have dealt with him in the past.
"He would stand in the roadway and wouldn't let people pass and he would talk to himself. He acted crazy," she said.
"I didn't even know anything was going on until I looked out of my window and saw a bunch of police with their guns drawn in my yard," next door neighbor Pam Hightower said. "This is really scary that this happened next door."
Officials at the scene said SWAT officers responded because McCuin had barricaded himself in the home, but Sgt. Mike North was finally able to talk the man out of the home without further incident. He was taken into custody on an outstanding felony retaliation warrant.
Once in the back of a patrol car, McCuin became violent and kicked out the side window before being put in additional restraints and transported to the Smith County Jail where he remains on the earlier warrant and a charge of capital murder with a $2 million bond.
"I about passed out when that glass shattered because I thought somehow he had gotten a gun and was shooting," Ms. Hightower said.
Wiginton said detectives were still working to locate where the murder actually took place.
"It didn't happen in that garage, but we haven't found where he killed her and we don't know exactly when he killed her," he said.
Wiginton said Shearer's body was sent to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas for an autopsy.
"I'm not a doctor, but there was a lot of blunt force head trauma and some other injuries that we are still investigating," he said.
Wiginton said that McCuin had gone to the deceased woman's home and it is believed she was taken against her will and this was the reason for the capital murder charge.
"We are really early into this investigation and we will know more as the night goes on. I would imagine that we will be out late tonight and then back out first thing tomorrow."
Wiginton said he believed McCuin drove to his mother's home with the dead woman in the backseat of his extended cab pickup just to show his mother that he had killed the woman.
"The mother and her boyfriend said they left the home when he said come look what I have done and they saw the body. I don't blame them," he said.
Dressed in a house robe, pants and slippers McCuin's disheveled mother showed back up at the scene Saturday afternoon to get some medications.
Ms. Hightower and other neighbors said they believed the man may have been on drugs and have dealt with him in the past.
"He would stand in the roadway and wouldn't let people pass and he would talk to himself. He acted crazy," she said.
