Personal Experience[]
I lived in Durant Oklahoma for 31 years, and this story touches a much larger issue: the county jail and the adjoining legal facility on Courthouse square in Durant. There have been other escapes like this one. Jailers apparently have turned prisoners loose and even court officials have allowed ill-advised releases! In the 2007 case of Bobby Don Mullinix, a rapist and drug trafficker, parole violations moved a judge to remand him to serve the remainder of his sentence in prison, but the story is that a DA or an assistant DA went behind the judge's order and recommended a bond, said to be on a Texas warrant. About nine hours after being released, Mullinix killed a man - another drug trafficker. I have some insight into this because my grandson witnessed that murder and became the critical witness for the prosecution, but in December of 2007 he was lured into a house less than a week before his court date and was shot dead there. The lure was his own infant daughter. The DA turned his killer loose and called the shooting self-defense even though the state's "make my day" law excludes its applicability if a child or grandchild is present at the shooting scene!" I wrote a book about this specific case along with the larger issue of so-called self-defense killings, "Legalized Killing: The Darker Side of the Castle Laws," which has been a worst seller. I'm a retired professor of chemistry, not a writer for profit. The book had no promotion, and in hindsight the factual information tends to offend those on both sides of the self-defense issue. I don't recommend my own book! Instead, I would rather see justice for what is almost certainly my grandson's murder. Durant has become Oklahoma's fourth worst crime city, mostly because of illicit drugs, outlaws like St. Clair and Reese and the questionable decisions of jailers and court officials. Realistically, nothing will be done; the situation can only worsen. (Unknown contributor, May 15, 2015)