Posted 11:23 pm Friday, March 15, 2013
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Upshur County jury indicts 3 for capital murder
BY PHILLIP WILLIAMS
Special Correspondent
Special Correspondent
GILMER — An Upshur County grand jury indicted three people Thursday on capital murder charges, accused of killing a Longview man late last year, District Attorney Billy Byrd said.
Daniel Paul Jones and Sarah Haslam, both 20 and of Longview, and 21-year-old Andrew Conrad Norwine, of Arlington, are charged with killing Ronnie Joe Gammage Dec. 5 by “cutting his throat or neck with a knife or a sharp forged object,” Byrd said.
The trio also is charged in Gregg County with the Dec. 5 aggravated kidnapping of the 27-year-old Gammage from a Longview business but has not been indicted in those cases, Byrd said.
The suspects remained in Upshur County Jail in Gilmer on Thursday under respective $1 million bonds on the capital murder charges, the same amount prior to their indictments, he said.
All have pleaded not guilty to that charge, which is punishable under state law only by lethal injection or life imprisonment without parole. Byrd said he has not decided whether to seek the death penalty, and that the cases are a “long ways away” from going to trial.
Daniel Paul Jones and Sarah Haslam, both 20 and of Longview, and 21-year-old Andrew Conrad Norwine, of Arlington, are charged with killing Ronnie Joe Gammage Dec. 5 by “cutting his throat or neck with a knife or a sharp forged object,” Byrd said.
The trio also is charged in Gregg County with the Dec. 5 aggravated kidnapping of the 27-year-old Gammage from a Longview business but has not been indicted in those cases, Byrd said.
The suspects remained in Upshur County Jail in Gilmer on Thursday under respective $1 million bonds on the capital murder charges, the same amount prior to their indictments, he said.
All have pleaded not guilty to that charge, which is punishable under state law only by lethal injection or life imprisonment without parole. Byrd said he has not decided whether to seek the death penalty, and that the cases are a “long ways away” from going to trial.
Longview police arrested Jones and Ms. Haslam Dec. 19 on the kidnapping charges after finding Gammage’s body in a pasture at the intersection of Martin Road and Mockingbird Lane in rural Upshur County the prior day, the Byrd said. The pair was charged with capital murder Dec. 20, he said.
Norwine, who was absent without leave from the U.S. Army at Fort Polk, La., when Gammage was slain, was arrested there Dec. 24, he said.
The suspects are charged with capital murder because it is alleged they were committing another felony — kidnapping — when they killed Gammage, Byrd said.
Each suspect has two court-appointed attorneys — a total of six defense attorneys in the cases, the prosecutor said.
Norwine, who was absent without leave from the U.S. Army at Fort Polk, La., when Gammage was slain, was arrested there Dec. 24, he said.
The suspects are charged with capital murder because it is alleged they were committing another felony — kidnapping — when they killed Gammage, Byrd said.
Each suspect has two court-appointed attorneys — a total of six defense attorneys in the cases, the prosecutor said.
