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Immunity issue flares in McClelland case
By Bill Hankins
The Paris News
Published May 18, 2009
A Paris attorney says a gravel truck driver who has said he may have hit something on a Lamar County road the night Brandon McClelland’s body was found will not speak to prosecutors unless he is granted immunity.
“They (prosecutors) have asked to speak to my client, and I have told them he is not speaking to them unless he has immunity,” Paris attorney Mike Mosher said early today.”
The gravel hauler in a statement to law enforcement authorities said he was on Farm Road 2648 shortly before McClelland’s body was found by passers-by at approximately 4 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2008.
Two other men, Shannon Finley and Ryan Crostley, have been charged with murder in McClelland’s death.
Finley is scheduled to go on trial Monday, July 20, in Sulphur Springs on a change of venue from Lamar County.
Crostley’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday, Sept. 21, also in Sulphur Springs.
Special prosecutor Toby Shook, of Dallas, assigned to the case because Lamar County and District attorney Gary Young had once defended Finley, said: “We are trying to follow up with the new information on the gravel truck driver. It will be up to the Lamar County district attorney’s office on what to do about immunity, but the truck driver has given a statement to investigators, and we have that statement, so I do not know if immunity is relevant.”
Paris defense attorney Ben Massar said the driver of the truck told investigators he thought he had hit something, looked back and saw nothing, stopped at one point to inspect his truck then went on.
Massar said: “I believe it was an accident, and I don’t think it was his (the gravel truck driver’s) intent to injure or kill anybody.”
Two witnesses who found McClelland’s body told authorities they passed a gravel truck going the opposite direction shortly before finding the body.
Finley and Crostley were charged with McClelland’s death after acquaintances told police the two men talked about his death and were the last people to be with McClelland on the night he died.
Since McClelland’s death, theories have swirled about how he died, who struck him and whether it was a hate crime or not.
The New Black Panthers came to Paris pushing for convictions of Finley and Crostley and demanding the crime be categorized as a hate crime.
When McClelland’s body was found, first responders initially believed it was a hit-run death, but investigators soon developed a different theory when they learned McClelland had been seen with Finley and Crostley in the evening before the body was discovered.
Investigators seized Finley’s truck and put it through a series of tests.
Massar said his team of investigators have determined the road where McClelland’s body was found is a common route for gravel trucks, and McClelland’s partially dismembered body was consistent with having been struck by a gravel truck.
Early in the investigation, Finley’s truck was tested and came up negative for DNA evidence. It was later retested with the same results.
After McClelland’s body was found, Finley fled to Wichita, Kan., where he was arrested.
Both Finley and Crostley have denied they had anything to do with McClelland’s death, but said the three had been out drinking on the night of the death and an argument ensued over who was sober enough to drive. At that point, the defendants said McClelland got out of Finley’s truck and began walking along the farm road.
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