Delia D'Ambra

About a week after the murder, JD's loved ones held his funeral in Center, Texas, and he was later laid to rest in a cemetery there.

Three months after the crime, in March of 1964, Henry's defense attorney petitioned the court to release the teenager pending trial because he claimed that the bond that the court had previously set was done so illegally.

Basically, as I understand it from reading the coverage, when Henry's bond was first issued, the district attorney told the court that the state intended to try Henry as an adult, but Henry wasn't even gonna turn 17 until September of 1964.

So, since he was a juvenile at the time of his arrest and arraignment, a judge granted the defense's request to have him released until his eventual trial.

More than a year after that, in late September 1964, the case went before a grand jury, and Henry was formally indicted for the crime.

His trial didn't get underway right away, though.

Another year would pass before he'd see the inside of a courtroom.

According to reporting by Pete Collins for the Orange Leader, the trial was originally scheduled for early September 1965.

But it got delayed because Jasper County's deputy sheriff, who'd first identified J.D.

's body and was considered a really important witness for the prosecution, had suffered a heart attack and been hospitalized.

That same article by Pete Collins also explained that the state announced it didn't intend to seek the death penalty against Henry.

Prosecutors noted that his status as a minor at the time of the crime was a factor in their decision to not pursue capital punishment.

When Henry's murder trial finally began, though, in early January 1966, 48 potential jurors were pulled to compile the final 12-member panel.

The prosecution called nine witnesses to testify, including JD's widow, Ellora, and Henry's friend, Robert Harder, who told the court that after the incident, he'd talked with Henry and Henry confessed to killing JD.

Another witness who testified was the deputy sheriff who'd recovered from his heart attack.

He told jurors that after examining the crime scene, collecting several shotgun shells and pellets, and conducting tests with Henry's 12-gauge shotgun, he'd concluded that the teenager had shot at JD three times.

First from about nine feet away, which was a shot that had hit the warden in his stomach area.

And then the second shot had hit JD's hat, but not injured him.

Finally, the third shot had struck JD in the top of his head.

That one had been fired from about seven feet away.