Prosecution reveals new timeline in Murdaugh killings
TULSA – The prosecution of James Boyd, who is accused of killing nine family members in a mass shooting in Tulsa, Okla., has released new testimony to support the theory that his actions were driven by his desire to bring attention to himself and his political activism.
Boyd, a former Tulsa mayor, is the key figure in a long-running political and legal fight over a series of killings that, authorities say, began in 1979, when his political enemies murdered his political enemies, including a state supreme court judge and a former aide to his mayoral predecessor.
During a marathon evidentiary hearing Thursday in Tulsa County District Court, prosecutors presented witness testimony to suggest Boyd acted alone in shooting at his political enemies the night of April 17, 1977, killing five people and wounding seven others in a downtown Tulsa bar.
The morning after the killings, he told investigators, James C. Boyd shot at the windows of his law office; he told them he then went to a bar and drank vodka and tonic until 11:15 a.m. He then shot a woman and a dog outside the bar, as well as the dogs in the bar – all without hitting the people he killed. He also said he shot at his law office but left before anybody was hit.
Boyd said he went to the bar that day to make a political statement, then he returned to his law office, where he shot a dog, a deer and a friend of the former mayor.
Prosecutors contend his actions that night stemmed from his political belief that the killing of his enemies and the subsequent killings of two women and a dog, which he described as a threat to “the whole city,” was unjustified.
“This case involves two sides to James Boyd’s story,” said Assistant District Attorney Jason Moore.
Boyd is charged with the first-degree murder of his ex-wife, Irene Boyd, and seven of his other family members, including his children with her, who were killed along with her friend, Patricia Ann Harris. He is also charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a woman and a man in the back of a car outside the same bar where he killed Irene Boyd.
The defense wants the case thrown out before Boyd is tried or sentenced. In court, his attorneys argue the murders all took