By Barry Porterfield
CNHI
Pauls Valley — For now a hearing will have to wait for a Paoli man accused of being responsible for the death of his infant son a year ago. A Garvin County judge approved a prosecutor’s request to postpone this week’s scheduled hearing for Johnny Ray Speerbrecher, 28. Among the trio of charges faced by Speerbrecher is the first-degree murder count accusing him of causing the blunt force head trauma that authorities believe is what killed 2-month-old Brody Speerbrecher on March 9, 2009. The murder defendant’s next big day in court, a preliminary hearing, had been set for Thursday in a Garvin County District courtroom. The proceeding never happened after Assistant District Attorney George Burnett was granted a motion for postponement on the basis a couple of witnesses for the prosecution were out-of-state and unavailable to testify. One of the witnesses named in the prosecutor’s motion was Dr. Scott Glover, who is an emergency room physician in Pauls Valley believed to be the first physician to see the infant a year ago. Glover was described as a “necessary witness for the state of Oklahoma.” Filed documents show Glover was in Nevada taking board exams related to his medical specialty. The exams are only offered once a year. A second witness, law enforcement officer Josh Norman, was reported to be attending a training school in Florida this week. Over the objections from Speerbrecher’s defense, the hearing was pushed back to May 13. Also approved was a reduction of the bond that continues to keep Speerbrecher incarcerated in Garvin County jail. The bond dropped from $1 million to $750,000 despite objections from Burnett. In addition to the felony murder charge, Speerbrecher also faces two drug related offenses. Court documents state that several grams of marijuana and various types of drug paraphernalia were found in Speerbrecher’s home on the day of the infant’s death. His home is within 2,000 feet of Paoli’s school complex. During a search of the Paoli residence in the 200 block of Dulin that same day, more than 40 grams of marijuana were found, along with items believed to be used in the drug’s distribution, including digital and hand-held scales, plastic bags, glass pipes, grinders, rolling papers and a “50” gram weight used to check the calibration of the scales.
