The following are some of the witnesses in the case.
The Laminacks were the ones who found the battered, stabbed, and unconscious Tama Hallmark. Their home was only 300 feet from the crime scene. Otest Laminack was deaf, and his wife, Jessie, translated questions from the attorneys using American sign language. Both testified that they saw a boy fitting Mike Lana's description running away from the car that afternoon. They did not, however, specifically identify Lana as the youth they witnessed.
Laminack said that they rushed back to the house where his wife called an ambulance. Laminack, meanwhile, took off in his car in pursuit of the boy he saw walking back to town through a pasture. He never caught up to him.
Mrs. Melba Warren testified that she saw Bert Michael Lana in the right front seat of Tama Hallmark's car only a half hour before the attack. She and her husband were returnning home from work when they drove by the Duncan High School parking lot. She said that she saw Lana and Hallmark about 4:18 PM. "He had a wide, smirky grin of the type you'd like to wipe off. Sort of a sneer," said Warren.
Mrs. Warren had formerly worked as a secretary for Mr. Hallmark and was working for him at the time of the attack --a fact that was duly noted by Jerome Sullivan Sr., counsel for the defense.
Mrs. Warren, who provided two hours of testimony on September 22, was strongly interrogated by the defense for aprroximately half that time. Sullivan queried Mrs. Warren, "You have an unusual and extraordinary interest in the outcome of this case, don't you?" She responded by saying. "Yes, I do. You would, too, if you had a teenage daughter.
September 23, 1965: State Crime Bureau agent Ernest Lovett disputed Mrs. Warren's claim that she had identified the boy she saw as Lana in April of 1964. He said that Mrs. Warren did not positively identify Lana as the subject until October of 1965. (The attack occurred January 6, 1964)
September 23, 1965: Deputy Sheriff Boyd Vantine gave testimony concerning his examination of footprints near the crime scene.
A young boy spoke with another boy as they walked near the site of the attack that evening. Jimmy W. was 11 years-old. At the time of his testimony he was living in Garland, Texas but formerly lived in Duncan. He was in Duncan at the time of the attack. The youth said, "I don't think so," when asked if Lana was the boy he spoke with.
Jimmy W.'s father, Bob W., was a surpise witness for the defense. Bob W. stated that he met Mrs. Warren in the Stephens County Sheriff's office four days after the attack. He said that his son, Jimmy, was being questioned by investigators in another room.
W. said that Mrs. Warren was upset because Tama's seventeen year-old brother, was being interrogated. He said that Mrs. Warren told him that she thought Tama's brother was the one she had seen in the car with Miss Hallmark on the afternoon of the attack.
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