Gun owners got letters
By MANNY GAMALLO World Staff Writer
8/20/2008
Last Modified: 8/20/2008 2:20 AM
OSBI agents went to gun dealers and pawnshops to create a list of .40-caliber Glock owners.
WELEETKA — Authorities working to narrow their leads in the June 8 shooting deaths of two girls used old-fashioned legwork to come up with a list of area gun owners with .40-caliber pistols, one of two weapons used in the slayings.
Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents knew the caliber of the guns used in the killings, so they merely checked with area gun dealers and pawnshops to determine who had bought or recently pawned .40-caliber Glocks.
"It's a typical procedure of any investigation" involving a gun, according to Jessica Brown, spokeswoman for the OSBI.
That time-consuming procedure yielded the OSBI the names of more than 60 owners of .40-caliber guns in the Weleetka area.
Consequently, the OSBI sent letters to all those gun owners, asking them to voluntarily submit their weapons for test firings over the weekend at the Okfuskee County Courthouse at Okemah.
About 40 of those gun owners showed up on Saturday and Sunday, and their weapons were fired once or twice and then returned to them.
The fired bullets and shell casings, meanwhile, were sent to a crime lab for analysis to determine if any of them match those used in the slayings of Skyla Jade Whitaker, 11, and Taylor Paschal-Placker, 13.
Brown said about five of the gun owners no longer owned the weapons, but they provided the names of the new owners.
The other 15 or so gun owners who did not show up will be checked by the OSBI to see why they didn't volunteer for the test firings.
"They can have any number of reasons" for not volunteering, Brown said. "They could be against it, they could be anti-government, or they eventually may want to help."
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