Delia D'Ambra

Oregon State Police issued a statement that read, quote, End quote.

For a while, investigators had been unable to locate the murder weapon suspected to have been used in the crime.

It wasn't found with Larry when he was arrested, but in early May, after more than 50 state police recruits volunteered to search for it along roadways in between the crime scene and where Larry was apprehended, a weapon similar to it was finally recovered.

Authorities sent it off for testing to determine whether it was a match to the slugs recovered from Danny and Jack, but the results were pending.

While that was going on, additional items associated with the crime, including Jack and Danny's wallets, were found along area roadways.

Jack told me he later learned Larry had thrown all that stuff out of Danny's pickup truck while he was running from police.

By May 10th, 1999, grand jurors had decided to formally indict Larry for 19 felony charges, which included aggravated murder, theft, assault, burglary, and first-degree kidnapping with a firearm.

The total number of crimes he was accused of was increased to 20 after prosecutors tacked on an additional charge for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

At an arraignment hearing in July, Larry pleaded not guilty and the judge scheduled his trial for May 2000.

At the request of Larry's defense lawyers, the trial was delayed a few times and ultimately didn't get underway until early April 2001, nearly two years after Danny's murder.

By that point, the state had decided not to seek the death penalty against Larry.

Why?

No one really knows for sure, but according to Jack, it might have something to do with the lack of physical evidence in the case.

You see, even though authorities had found a .22 caliber gun they suspected had been used in the crime, subsequent test results weren't able to conclusively match it to the rounds fired at Jack and Danny.

So the way the DA described it to Jack, the gun wasn't going to be super compelling evidence in front of jurors.

which meant the case against Larry was almost entirely based on circumstantial evidence.

And of course, Jack's testimony.

But that also had its fair share of issues.

You see, Jack said because of the trauma he'd been through and the fact that he'd seen so little of Larry's face during the shootings, he was unable to positively identify Larry as the killer while on the witness stand.

He knew in his gut that Larry was the man who'd shot him and Danny, but he couldn't be 100% sure.