Murder trial continued to allow further forensic testing
Apr. 14—A Pittsburg County judge granted a motion to continue a murder trial to allow further forensic testing and agreed to reduce the bond of a man accused of murdering a McAlester woman.
Pittsburg County Associate District Judge Tim Mills granted state prosecutors' motion to continue the scheduled May trial of Cody Ketchum.
Ketchum, 36, was indicted by a multi-county grand jury in October 2022 with first-degree murder and a misdemeanor charge of destroying evidence in the death of Holly Cantrell — the McAlester woman who disappeared in January 2017 before her skeletal remains were discovered and later identified in 2020.
Prosecutors filed the motion to continue due to "outstanding forensic testing on items of evidentiary value" that won't be complete until the week of April 24 "which is inside the 10-day discovery cutoff period."
"Further, additional testing may be required which would not be completed until the trial is scheduled to begin," Oklahoma Assistant Attorney General Heather Anderson wrote in the motion. "The state requested the testing as soon as it was discovered the evidence in question was inadvertently excluded from evidence previously submitted for forensic testing."
According to the motion, the defense objected to the continuance due to Ketchum remaining in custody. Ketchum's defense attorney, Brecken Wagner, previously argued in court for the trial to be set in March and that he would be ready for trial before the trial was scheduled for the May trial docket.
Mills granted the motion to continue and placed the trial onto the October 2023 trial docket.
Court documents show Wagner made an oral motion for a reduction in bond.
Mills granted the motion and reduced Ketchum's bond from $750,000 to $250,000 with the conditions of having no contact with any named witness, a curfew of 9 p.m., and not being able to leave the state of Oklahoma.
Cantrell was 40 when she was reported missing Jan. 20, 2017 after video shows she left her job at McAlester Regional Health Center during a lunch break at 11:56 a.m. that day. Hospital security video showed Cantrell wearing green nursing scrubs when she left and got into a green, short wheelbase truck, police said.
Police said the last reported sighting of Cantrell was at 12:20 p.m. that day at Braum's Restaurant at 625 S. George Nigh Expressway.
Cantrell's disappearance was featured on the Investigation Discovery channel and several media outlets.
The Pittsburg County Sheriff's Department opened a homicide investigation into Cantrell after her remains were found in February 2018 on a secluded peninsula in the Cardinal Point Recreation Area in northern Pittsburg County. The remains were later sent for DNA testing at the University of North Texas that confirmed in 2020 the remains were of Cantrell.
