RICHLAND CO.—The man who is charged with murdering one of Olney’s thugs back in November has stopped his speedy trial clock as of today; however, a jury trial date has been set.
Brandon Jenkins, 35, of Houston, has been jailed since November 20 after a parking lot, post -bar brawl spilled over onto his vehicle, set off a car alarm, woke him up out of a sound sleep at Olney’s Super 8 motel and caused him to come outside, only to encounter a set of Olney’s worst, Flavius and Scott Earp and that night’s hanger-on, Chris Arteberry. Following a typical Earp-threat of bodily harm, reportedly upon which both Scott Earp and Arteberry were advancing on him after Jenkins entered his truck cab to silence the alarm, Jenkins, a Marine who had already done two tours in Iraq, pulled a handgun from the vehicle and shot both of them, grazing Arteberry and allegedly inflicting a fatal wound in Earp. The boy, 25, later died at Richland Memorial Hospital.
Jenkins, in stripes.
Today, Jenkins made a brief appearance in court, met by a gaggle of trashy Earp-followers and babymommas (one of whom, again, didn’t have the sense to leave her small kid at home), with convicted sex offender Jonathan Trout (an Earp half-brother) as the token male. With John O’Gara at Jenkins’ side, Jenkins told Judge Larry Dunn that they were stopping the speedy trial clock (which would have forced the state to provide a trial before the end of March) and have set six days for a jury trial commencing April 24 and continuing through May 1. A next pretrial is set for March 9.
We watched the drama today, and really…the Earp crew needs to get a grip. Poor Robin Trout or whatever is her name these days, mother of Scott Earp, sounds like a bottle fly on sedatives droning in the background, talking about the ruling of the coroner being “homicide.” Poor Robin doesn’t understand, and prosecutor David Hyde apparently hasn’t bothered to explain to her yet, that there is “justified homicide,” and that the coroner’s ruling of “homicide” merely means literally, “death by another man.” It’s up to a jury to decide if it’s murder….which is different than homicide.
We’re hearing rumblings that there might be a movement on to establish a local fund for Jenkins’ defense. We know that his family has hired one of the best lawyers in downstate, but there are still going to be expenses associated with everything, as well as the egregious cash bond ($350,000 cash on a $3.5 mil bail….David Hyde definitely doesn’t care a damn about the Eighth Amendment.) If such a fund is established, we’ll bring you the details on how you can contribute, as there’s more at stake here than a man’s life being tossed aside by a corrupt prosecutor looking to cover for his thug, dope-muscle buddies….it’s a self-defense issue, and it needs to not fall out of the spotlight.