POTEAU, Okla. — One of two brothers charged in the 2010 murder of a Fort Smith woman was ordered Thursday to stand trial in LeFlore County District Court on first-degree murder and sodomy charges.
LeFlore County Special District judge Jeffrey Singer ruled during a preliminary hearing there was sufficient evidence to determine that 22-year-old Briana Ault was murdered and sodomized and that there was probable cause to believe that Jonathan Thacker committed the crimes.
Singer scheduled Thacker’s arraignment on the charges for March 13 before District Judge Jonathan Sullivan.
A big man standing taller than 6 feet, Thacker, 24, lumbered into the courtroom before the hearing Thursday, shackled hand and foot with shaved head and a full beard. When onemember of his public-defender team asked him how he was feeling that morning, Thacker replied, “Time of my life.”
He seemed cheerful before the hearing, chuckling as he chatted with his attorneys. Three jailers stood around the defense table where Thacker sat throughout the hearing.
Thacker’s brother, Elvis, 25, also is charged with firstdegree murder and sodomy. According to the LeFlore County District Court clerk’s office, a preliminary hearing has not been scheduled for him.
District Attorney Jeff Smith said Thursday Elvis Thacker still was undergoing a mental competency evaluation and that all proceedings in his case have been suspended until he is declared competent for his case to proceed.
He also said he has not made a decision on whether to seek the death penaltyagainst either brother.
The district attorney’s office called two witnesses during the two-hour hearing. The defense, attorneys from the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System in Norman, Okla., called none.
The first witness was Terry Bartlett of Utah, who testified he was incarcerated with Jonathan Thacker in the Sebastian County jail for about a month in 2010. He said he wrote down Thacker’s story of events surrounding Ault’s Sept. 12, 2010, death as Thacker was telling it to him.
Bartlett said he wrote the story in a letter at Thacker’s request and later mailed it to a Fort Smith reporter.
“He hoped that by telling the truth, it would bring some closure for the family and help him with his defense. By being open and honest, he might not have to do so much time,” Bartlett said.
During his testimony, Bartlett recounted what Thacker told him. He said Thacker and his brother had been awake for days on a methamphetamine binge. In order to get money to continue the binge, Elvis Thacker wanted to rob Ault, whom he had dated in high school, because he heard she had won $1,200 or $1,600 at a casino.
Elvis Thacker sent Ault a text message on the night of Sept. 12, 2010, and asked for a ride, saying he would pay for her gas.
Ault picked up the two at a Fort Smith apartment where the two were staying, Bartlett said, and Elvis Thacker gave Ault directions where to drive. The directions led to an isolated pond just over the state line in Pocola, Okla.
When they arrived and parked, Bartlett recounted, Elvis Thacker told Ault of his intention to rob her. Ault replied she didn’t have any money.
The conversation turned to sex, Bartlett testified, and Elvis Thacker became upset because Ault never had sex with him when they dated. Elvis Thacker then forced Ault to perform oral sex on him and told his brother to take Ault from the car to the pond, Barlett said.
There, Bartlett said, Elvis Thacker ordered Ault down on her knees and to crawl to the water and wash out her mouth.
In a statement he gave Aug. 29, 2012, to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Shawn Ward, who also testified Thursday, said Elvis Thacker also ordered Ault to perform oral sex on Jonathan Thacker. He then told Ault to wash out her mouth with water from the pond again.
In Bartlett’s testimony, he said Jonathan Thacker told him that Elvis Thacker tried to drown Ault by holding her head under water. She struggled so strongly, he said, that both brothers couldn’t stop her thrashing. He said Elvis Thacker tooka straight razor he had earlier used to cut the straps of Ault’s bra and shirt and cut Ault’s throat. He said she stopped struggling after a short time and the upper part of her body sank into the pond.
Bartlett said that according to Thacker’s story, the brothers drove Ault’s car to Cedarville in Crawford County where they had been living in an abandoned house, changed clothes and drove back to Fort Smith.
They parked the car in a vacant lot in south Fort Smith where Elvis Thacker cut the sleeves off both of their shirts, stuffed them into the gas tank and lit them on fire. The car burned.
The two brothers were arrested three days after Ault’s death, on Sept. 15, 2010. Fort Smith police had warrants for the two on an unrelated rape case. They also wanted to question the two about Ault’s death after finding in Ault’s phone records that she had received a text messagefrom Elvis Thacker around the time of her disappearance.
When police arrived at the apartment where the two were staying, Elvis Thacker attacked one of the detectives, stabbing and cutting him. Another officer shot Elvis Thacker twice in the abdomen, causing wounds from which it took months for him to recover.
Elvis Thacker pleaded guilty Aug. 29, 2011, in Sebastian County Circuit Court to attempted capital murder inthe attack on the Fort Smith detective and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Jonathan Thacker pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The two brothers also pleaded guilty to kidnapping in the case in which they initially were charged with rape. Elvis Thacker was sentenced to 30 years and Jonathan Thacker was sentenced to 25 years.
The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/22/2013