Jury selection begins in murder trial from 1993 death
LAPORTE Jury selection began Monday for the case of Jason Tibbs, 39, who is going on trial for the killing of Rayna Rison, 16, of LaPorte, who was found stranglpatagonia better sweater jacket women's saleed in 1993.
A 12 member jury with two alternates will be selected from 120 people who reported to LaPorte Circuit Court on Monday for the selection process.
Each prospective juror filled out a questionnaire to give the judge, defense and prosecution an idea on who would be fair and impartial in decidipatagonia better sweater zip coatng patagonia outlet store dillon montana0guilt or innocence given the amount of publicity the case has generated.
Jurors who have little or no knowledge of the case were quickly asked to return Tuesday to be considered for serving on the jury.
Other prospective jurors were immediately excused if work or some other obligation would keep them from serving or if they revealed being exposed to a heavy amount of publicity about the case that would hinder their ability to be neutral while examining tpatagonia outlet store dillon montanahe evidence.
The remainder of the prospective jurors were taken into a small conference room to be questioned individually to determine if they should be called back Tuesday to be further considered for the jury.
Today is the day designed to weed out the people who know too much about the case or have an opinion already about the case, said Judge Tom Alevizos.
Alevizos said the jurpatagonia luxury hotelsy could be chosen early enough to have opening arguments in the case either Tuesday afternoon or Wednesdaypatagonia outlet store dillon montana1 mpatagonia outlet store meorning.
Normally, he said jury selection takes one day apatagonia outlet store 33nd is selected from a pool of 60 individuals.
But, given the amount of publicity in the case, Alevizos said twice as many people were called to report for consideration to make sure there were enough for assembling a fair and impartial jury.
The jury selection process has been used in other high publicitypatagonia discount code san diego trials.
We expect the potential for a lot of people to be stricken for cause, said Alevizos.
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Rison, a LaPorte High School sophomore, was last seen at her job at the Pine Lake Animal Clinic in March of 1993.
Her badly decomposed body was found a month laterpatagonia everlong review under the skin in patagonia everlong review ubera small pond along Range Road several miles north of LaPorte.
The girl s disappearance and the case being unsolved following her discovery generated nationwide headlines and once was featured on the then popular America s Most Wanted television show.
In 1998, her brother in law, Ray McCarty patagonia guide jacket under armourwas charged with the murder but later released with lpatagonia outlet store dillon montana3ack of sufficient evidence being cited.
LaPorte police began taking a harder look at the case again in 2008 then last year pursued charges after Eric Freeman told investigators he was with Tibbs when he strangled Rison and Rickey Hammons claimed to have seen Rison s body in the trunk of a car driven by Tibbs and occupied by Freeman.
