(Stillwater, Okla.) – A trial for a 99-year-old man charged with first-degree murder in the shotgun slaying of his 30-year-old great-granddaughter on Dec. 5, 2013, at his then-residence in rural Cushing has been scheduled to begin on May 2, 2016, in Payne County District Court.
Russell Eugene Dawes, who now lives with his daughter in Tennessee, was not in court Friday when defense attorney Cheryl Ramsey of Stillwater asked that the two-year-old case be set for a jury trial.
Payne County District Judge Phillip Corley Friday scheduled a final pre-trial hearing for April 22, 2016, which he said Dawes “will need to appear on.”
Dawes was 97 when he was held without bail in the Payne County Jail for more than four months until he was released on April 22, 2014, after posting a $25,000 cash bond and being fitted with an ankle monitor provided by the sheriff’s office at Dawes’ expense, court records show.
“The Payne County Sheriff’s Office is aware of Mr. Dawes’ whereabouts at all times,” the defense attorney noted in a court document.
“Mr. Dawes does not leave the residence (in Tennessee) due to his health except for doctor’s appointments,” his attorney said.
Dawes did not appear in Payne County District Court last May when he waived his right by closed circuit to a preliminary hearing on the murder charge, court records show.
While he was in the Payne County Jail, Dawes was “in and out of the hospital,” along with taking daily breathing treatments, Undersheriff Garry McKinnis said.
According to the undersheriff, Dawes told Cushing funeral director Rodger Floyd that the victim, Sonja Rose James, who was living with him southwest of Cushing, possibly as his caretaker, “had beaten him and he was tired of it.”
Dawes appeared to have two black eyes when he was jailed, the undersheriff said.
More than $29,000 in cash, as well as a check for $27,353.91 that was issued to Dawes by a Cushing bank on the day before the slaying, was found in the house, investigators said.
“It appears that a 410 shotgun was the murder weapon. We believe it was fired one time,” Sheriff’s Investigator Larry Kitchel said.
The victim, who was found in her bed, was struck in the chin and right cheek after being shot from less than 10 feet away, Sheriff’s Deputy George Disel said.
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