SEMINOLE-AREA COUPLE FACE CHARGES IN NEPHEW’S KILLING
Prosecutors on Tuesday filed first-degree murder charges against the uncle and aunt of Colton Clark. The Seminole-area boy went missing in 2006, but his body has not been found.
WEWOKA — Prosecutors on Tuesday filed first-degree murder charges against a missing boy’s uncle and aunt even though his body has not been found.
James Rex Clark, 65, and Rebecca Faith Clark, 59, are accused of killing Colton Clark in March or April 2006 by beating him. They reported the 9-yearold boy missing from their farm near Seminole on April 20, 2006.
They also are each charged with four counts of child abuse, two counts of child neglect, conspiracy to commit witness intimidation and witness intimidation.
They were arrested April 8. Investigators began searching their farm the same day for the boy’s remains and other evidence. That search is ongoing.
“We believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove the child is deceased,” Seminole County District Attorney Chris Ross said Tuesday. “A lot of people think that prosecuting murder cases without bodies is a new thing. It’s actually been going on since the 1700s — successfully. It started in England. Then it came over to the United States. The first federal case is sometime in the 1800s.”
The first Oklahoma case was in 1909. It involved a woman who killed her husband and burned his body beyond recognition. “We have the case law that firmly establishes that you don’t have to have a body,” the district attorney said.
Ross has successfully prosecuted no body cases before, the last time in 2007 when a Woodward woman was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of her 6-year-old son. The boy disappeared in 2002 and his body was never found.
The key witness against Rex and Rebecca Clark is Colton’s older brother, Homer Clark, who now goes by a different name.
Defense attorney Robert Butler, of Shawnee, said Rex and Rebecca Clark maintain they are innocent.
“Both of them do and they’ve both been kept separate, even in court,” he said. “They’re both steadfast — with the same types of information. It didn’t sound canned to me . ... You can tell canned answers. It’s not of that nature. They’re both maintaining the same story. He disappeared.”
Colton and his older brother were placed by the state with their uncle and his wife in 2003. The defense attorney said Rex and Rebecca Clark adopted the boys, taking them from a horrible situation.
In the child abuse counts, Rex and Rebecca Clark are accused of beating both boys and of using cattle prods on both boys’ genitals. In the witness intimidation and conspiracy counts, they are accused of threatening to kill Homer Clark if he did not stick to the contrived story about Colton’s disappearance.
The charges Tuesday are the outcome of a renewed investigation of the cold case. Last September, the Seminole County sheriff’s office and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation began interviewing witnesses again.
The older brother, Homer Clark, told investigators he last saw Colton in March 2006 and his uncle and aunt brainwashed him into telling a lie that Colton had ran away.
“Homer knew Colton did not run away, because Homer and Colton were close,” a Seminole County sheriff’s investigator, David Hanson, wrote in arrest and search warrant affidavits. “Homer also knew Colton left his boots and jacket. Homer knew Colton would never leave the house without telling him or without wearing his coat and boots.”
He told investigators they were regularly beaten.
The brother said his uncle and aunt beat Colton the last time in the master bedroom for about 45 minutes one night, according to the affidavits. Colton had denied stealing a turquoise ring. The brother said he heard Colton screaming and crying.
“Homer woke up at 2:35 ... to go to the bathroom,” Hanson wrote in the affidavits. “Homer saw the television was on. The light from the television shined on the couch. Homer saw Colton laying on the couch. There was an old green Army sleeping bag laying over Colton . ... Homer saw Colton’s face was black and blue. Homer did not know if Colton was breathing or not.”
The brother said he woke up again at 5:15 that morning. He said the television was off, Colton was not on the couch, the sleeping bag was gone and his uncle was standing in the kitchen, already dressed, according to the affidavits. “Homer thought this was strange because Rex was not normally up and dressed this early in the morning,” Hanson wrote.
Investigators believe Colton’s body was buried on the 5-acre farm, possibly under a hay bale.