Defense requests Feb. trial date in Holly Cantrell murder case
Nov. 16—Attorneys for a man indicted for the murder of Holly Cantrell asked a judge to set the trial for February 2023 — citing several concerns that a speedy trial would not be guaranteed.
A multicounty grand jury indicted Cody Ketchum, 36, in October with first-degree murder and a misdemeanor charge of destroying evidence in the 2017 death of Cantrell.
Pittsburg County Jail records show Ketchum remains held on a $1 million bond.
Brecken Wagner, Ketchum's defense attorney, argued in court documents filed Tuesday that Ketchum was initially interviewed by law enforcement, and submitted to a polygraph test and a search of his property during the initial missing person case in 2017.
Cantrell went missing in January 2017 when she left the McAlester Regional Health Center on her lunch break. Ketchum told investigators at the time that he picked up Cantrell from the hospital and dropped her off at the Braum's on U.S. Highway 69 in McAlester so she could eat with friends.
Cantrell never returned to work and was later reported missing by family.
Ketchum told investigators that Cantrell asked him "to come back, but he had other things to do," according to an incident report the News-Capital obtained through an Open Records Act request.
The Pittsburg County Sheriff's Department opened a homicide investigation after remains were found in 2018 and later identified as Cantrell's in 2020.
Wagner said Ketchum was never accused of a crime in the five years since cooperating with law enforcement other than from Pittsburg County Sheriff Chris Morris.
"To this day the manner of death remains officially 'unknown' and the sheriff concluded what no medical examiner ever has, that Ms. Cantrell was even murdered," the motion states.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Cantrell's probable cause of death as "undetermined" with a manner of death "unknown," according to reports the News-Capital obtained through an Open Records Act request.
Wagner wrote in the motion that during a bond hearing, prosecutors from the Attorney General's Office provided "no evidentiary facts of any kind" with the judge ruling to keep Ketchum's bond at $1 million.
Ketchum's attorney also wrote the AG's office has not provided the defense any discovery.
Wagner wrote that an investigator for the defendant dropped off a two-terabyte hard drive with the Attorney General's office "in a second attempt to get discovery."
"There has been no communication from the Attorney General's office in regard to whether the discovery has been transferred or even to acknowledge the hard drive was received," Wagner wrote.
The motion also states the defense learned a new search warrant was recently conducted on "a family member's phone" — and that investigators from the AG's Office met with and interviewed family members "that have been available, but never spoken to by law enforcement in regard to this case."
"All of this leaves one to be concerned that the Attorney General's Office may have pushed through an indictment on a matter that wasn't fully investigated, and they are finding is still in need of being fully investigated," Wagner wrote in the motion.
The motion asks for a judge to set the trial against Ketchum to begin in February, stating that despite not receiving discovery "the defendant will be ready for trial."
"The state of Oklahoma has had years to collect evidence and prepare for the indictment they took to a grand jury in this matter," the motion states. "There should be no plausible reason that they cannot be ready for trial."
No response has been made by prosecutors as of the time this story was being prepared Wednesday.
Contact Derrick James at djames@mcalesternews.com
