CASEY CROWDER - 17yr Arkansas missing since 8/27/2006(BODY FOUND)

News

NEW HEARING DATE SLATED FOR OSBURN

By Patty Wooten/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, December 7, 2006 8:17 AM CST

Kenneth Osburn’s omnibus hearing, rescheduled last month to allow his attorney time to file pretrial motions, has been reset for Jan. 22.

Osburn’s pretrial hearing on kidnapping and capital murder charges in connection with the Aug. 27 strangulation death of Casey Crowder was postponed because the 46-year-old Desha County man’s mental evaluation and subsequent report weren’t completed until late November.

Osburn, who has been found competent to stand trial, allegedly strangled the 17-year-old Pine Bluff girl with a zip-tie, a plastic device used to bundle things such as cables and wires, before dumping her body near a drainage canal east of Dumas.

Osburn’s mental evaluation report, signed by state-appointed psychologist, Dr. Myeong W. Kim, said Osburn did not have any substantial mental disorder the morning of Aug. 27 when Crowder’s vehicle ran out of gas on U.S. 65 at Dumas while she was returning to Pine Bluff after visiting her boyfriend at Pickens.

“Casey was a motorist in distress and instead of coming to her aid, Mr. Osburn kidnapped and strangled her to death,” 10th Judicial District Prosecutor Thomas Deen said during an interview following Osburn’s first court appearance in September.

Crowder’s body, identified by dental records, was discovered on Sept. 2, six days after she disappeared.

After a three-hour evaluation of Osburn’s mental capacity, Kim found that Osburn “has a factual and rational understanding of the proceedings against him and he does not lack the capacity to effectively assist his attorney.”

During the evaluation, Osburn took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), a broad-based test designed to assess a number of major patterns of personality, emotional and behavioral disorders.

People with Osburn’s MMPI profile “tend to have deep and chronic feelings of hostility toward family members. They tend to be very sensitive to rejection, and they become hostile when criticized. They tend to be socially extroverted, but lack skills with members of the opposite sex. They tend to be sexually maladjusted, and marital instability and sexual promiscuity are common...” Kim wrote in his report.

In the information charging Osburn with kidnapping and capital murder, the state specified three possible purposes, including sexual intercourse, for which Crowder may have been kidnapped.

Osburn, who has pleaded innocent to the charges against him, denied police claims that he confessed to the crimes, according to Kim’s report.

Kim quotes Osburn as saying: “I did not confess. I just repeated what they wanted me to say so they leave my daughter alone. They threatened to lock up my daughter. They asked me to just tell when I used a plastic tie. I said at the end.”

Osburn reportedly told Kim: “They got nothing on me. ... No DNA. ... I did not do it. ... I confessed because they threatened to lock up my daughter. It scares (expletive deleted) of me that they let somebody go away.”

The state has indicated it will seek the death penalty.