Homicides, rape cases set for jury trial docket

The third of four weeks in the Comanche County jury trial docket includes two homicide trials and an unusual rape trial scheduled.

Jurors will arrive Tuesday morning due to the Veterans Day holiday’s closure of the Comanche County Courthouse for voir dire, or selection, for roles in determining the outcomes of the week’s trials.

All trials are subject to pleas or continuance.

On Tuesday, a 62-year-old man will begin trial in Comanche County Presiding Judge Emmit Tayloe’s court for the Jan. 21 shooting death of one of his housemates.

Wesley Blake Moore, of Lawton, for a count of first-degree manslaughter. He’d originally faced a felony charge of first-degree murder — deliberate intent but the charge was amended at his preliminary hearing in July.

The charge is punishable by no less than four years in prison.

Lawton police were called to 1604 SW E the night of Jan. 21 to a shooting call and found a woman who said Corliss Howell, 64, was shot and killed inside the house, the probable cause affidavit.

The woman, a housemate with the two men, told police she and Howell had been gone most of the day and had came home around 3 p.m. to find Moore alone and intoxicated, according to the affidavit. At one point, she said, they were all sitting around the kitchen table and Moore argued with her and Howell because they didn’t bring him any whiskey.

The woman said Moore got up from the table and left the room briefly before returning with a pistol, pointing it at Howell’s face. As Howell stood up from his chair, she said, Moore fired the gun at Howell “right in the mouth,” according to the affidavit.

Howell remains held in the Comanche County Detention Center on $1 million bond.

Tayloe’s court will be the site for Thursday’s beginning of the trial of a Lawton man accused of the December 2023 killing of a bicyclist on Cache Road.

Vincent Joseph Sayers, 26, will begin trial for felony charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatality accident, records indicate. The murder count is punishable by between 10 years to life in prison.

Sayers is accused of being high on fentanyl when he drove a Mazda MZPV van that struck and killed bicyclist Mark Cochran near Northwest 50th Street and Cache Road on Dec. 22, 2023, before fleeing the scene after the accident.

Security video from Braum’s, 4435 Cache Road, showed the van stop at the intersection and wait for Cochran, who was on his bicycle, before accelerating toward Cochran and colliding into him, running him over and leaving, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Police found the van parked at Sayers’ home, 4421 NW Baltimore, and he and others there were taken in for interviews.

Sayers’ mother, Jill Renee Donnell, 45, of Lawton, was also charged on Feb. 28 with a felony count of accessory after the fact, records indicate. The crime is punishable by between five to 25 years in prison.

Donnell is accused of lying to police about her son being home. Following a search warrant of Sayers’ Facebook account, conversations between mother and son were discovered.

Sayers told Donnell to report the van stolen and she later said she did but had to call back and say it was found because Twister Auto was going to track it, the affidavit states.

Donnell also messaged Sayers about meeting up and about parking the van in the garage for a couple of days to let the exhaust dry up so he could weld it, according to the affidavit.

Donnell is free on $20,000 bond and is scheduled for trial in the February/March 2025 jury trial docket.

Sayers remains behind in jail on $250,000 bond.

On Tuesday, trial is scheduled to begin for a man accused of committing rape during a February 2011 incident at Lake Ellsworth.

He was charged after a rape kit taken following the incident returned 12 years later identifying him as the attacker, according to investigators.

Austin Nate Lankister, 31, of Valliant, will begin trial in Judge Scott D. Meaders’ court for felony count of first-degree rape by force or fear, records indicate. The crime is punishable by between five years to life in prison.

The charges followed an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) investigation at the request of the Lawton Police Department.

The incident is alleged to have happened Feb. 21, 2011, while the victim was assaulted and became unconscious in the wooded area off Jake Dunn Road at Lake Ellsworth, according to the warrant affidavit. She was found with her pants pulled down. She was taken to Comanche County Memorial Hospital and a Sexual Assault Nurse Examination was conducted and rape kit collected.

The contents of the rape kit were tested and DNA matching Lankister returned from the vaginal swabs on Feb. 2, 2022, the affidavit states. Lankister was identified through the Combined DNA Index System.

The woman told investigators she’d been dating Lankister at the time of the incident. She said she’d been drinking beer that night and when she stopped Lankister from kissing her, he propped her against a truck, according to the affidavit. When she was awakened, she was bleeding from the face.

It took until Feb. 27, 2023, for a search warrant to be obtained for a DNA sample from Lankister. He told the investigators he’d never been alone with the woman and hadn’t had sex with her there, the affidavit states. He said he didn’t know how his DNA was found on the woman, Diaz stated.

Lankister has been free on $50,000 bond since his initial court appearance June 19, 2023.

Other trial:

•Edward Terrell Glaze, 35, of Lawton, will begin trial Friday in Comanche County District Judge Scott D. Meaders’ court for possession of a firearm after former felony conviction and protective order violation.