Tyler

By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer

Christopher Lee McCuin, accused of brutally killing his girlfriend, appeared in court Monday and was advised of the capital murder charge against him.

The 25-year-old Tyler man is accused of beating to death and mutilating the body of his girlfriend, Jana Shearer, 21, on Saturday.

Judge Jack Skeen Jr., of the 241st District Court, read McCuin his Miranda rights and set his bond at $2 million. He also advised him of a charge of retaliation, allegedly committed on Nov. 8 against a Tyler police officer. He had a warrant out for his arrest on the pending charge at the time of the alleged murder and Skeen set his bond for that offense at $50,000.

McCuin, clad in a red jail jumpsuit and shackled with belly chains, answered the judge’s questions quietly during the brief court hearing. Tyler defense attorneys Jeff Haas and Guy Conine were appointed to represent him in both cases.

Sheriff J. B. Smith said investigators found Ms. Shearer’s body with chunks of flesh cut out, one ear boiling in a pot of water on the stove and a plate of human flesh with a fork on the kitchen table in his mother's brick home at 423 Princess Place in Tyler.

Officials said that McCuin killed the woman by beating her in the head with a blunt object after abducting her from her Whitehouse apartment, put her body in the back seat of his extended cab pickup, drove to his estranged wife’s home where he stabbed her boyfriend multiple times, ran from police, broke into a Tyler business and then finally went to his mother’s home where he asked her to come look what he had done.

Christopher Lee McCuin leaves the Smith County 241st Circuit Court today after being arraigned for the murder of his girlfriend Jana Shearer of Whitehouse.
(Staff photo by Jaime R. Carrero)