Jason Tibbs

This is an odd case for me. It is one of those cases that ran cold for twenty years. It is also a case in which prosecutors arrested and charged a suspect some five years after the crime only to drop the charges saying there was insufficient evidence. When this happens it makes the job of the prosecutor that much harder because the defense has a “fall guy.” They do not always have to say that the previous suspect is the actual perpetrator, but they can simply argue that the prosecutor and law enforcement had been so convinced that person was the suspect that they had gone as far as to arrest someone and charge them, only to decide the person was either innocent or as this case stated, there was not enough evidence to move forward.

Jason Tibbs was convicted in the murder of Rayna Rison, twenty-one years after her murder. He had been an early suspect when Rayna first disappeared March 26, 1993 after his class ring was found in her car. At the time authorities believed Tibbs' story that he and Rayna were friends and he had worked on her car recently as the explanation as to why his ring was found in her car. But authorities were also looking at Ray McCarty.

Rayna Rison was a sixteen year old girl from LaPorte Indiana where she worked at a local animal clinic. On the night of March 26^th she was working at the clinic and had a planned date with her boyfriend, Matt Elser. Elser was at her home with her parents waiting for her to come home from work. When she did not come home he and family members began looking for her. While my research was not specific it appears that her vehicle was found within a day or two. Yet, Rayna's body was not found for another month. She was found April 27, 1993. Authorities would later say that her body had been disposed of in a pond.

As I stated earlier authorities were looking at Ray McCarty. Ray was married to Rayna's older sister, Lori. At the time of her death Ray was on probation for a crime that had involved Rayna. In 1991, some two years before her death, Ray had been convicted for molesting Rayna that had resulted in a pregnancy. There are few details available about the specifics of what happened other than to say despite the situation at hand it appears that none of Rayna's family believed that Ray was involved in her death. I have looked on the Indiana Department of Corrections website and it does not appear that Ray received any prison time for the crime and may have only been given probation. He would admit to investigators that on the night she disappeared he had actually had contact with Rayna at her work, which again was a violation of his probation but was also not necessarily proof that had been involved in her death.

The murder case seemed to languish until 1998 when Ray McCarty was indicted in the case. He was arrested and charged and he spent the next sixteen months in jail before prosecutors dropped the charges claiming there was insufficient evidence. It is unclear just what evidence was used to justify the indictment as well as the charges that were filed against him. It should be noted that it appears that at no time what so ever did Rayna's family believe that he was responsible for her death and have been vocal in saying so, although I must be fair in saying I do not know their reasons for feeling so. The problem here lies with the fact that the investigators were claiming they had the perpetrator of a murder. I did not see the media reports of McCarty's arrest but it is likely safe to say that not only were the investigators and the prosecutors announcing they “had their man” but the arrest itself told the society that the case had been solved. It then makes it that much more difficult when later, no matter how long it has been, those same investigators and prosecutors, or at the very least obviously from the same office, later make these same claims against another suspect. This is a dream defense for an attorney. The second problem that it brings is that despite the fact that charges were dropped and there did not seem to be sufficient evidence that McCarty was in fact the perpetrator, the damage to his reputation had been done. There would always be those who were convinced that a murderer was set free on a technicality of some sort.

We all know that our justice system touts the idea that one is “innocent until proven guilty” but I think most of you would agree that is not really how things are in the real world. When an arrest is announced through the media society in general already decide that the perpetrator is guilty I would gander to guess at least 99% of the time. I am sure that many of us are guilty of doing the same. Then there are the cases such as O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony in which a jury has rendered them not guilty and a majority of society believes the jury “got it wrong.” Oftentimes after a suspect has been arrested and charged and then later released due to lack of evidence a prosecutor will continue to proclaim their guilt and blame the release on something minor. It is then hard for society to then reconcile that within themselves when someone else is charged in the crime. Once in court we all know that in order to receive a guilty verdict that a jury must unanimously agree that the person is guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Unless forbidden by the judge to mention the previous suspect who had been charged the defense has “reasonable doubt” nearly handed to them on a platter. There are times that judges will rule that the defense is not to mention alternate suspects by name but that sometimes comes back to bite them so more often than not the suspect can be mentioned but some details are suppressed.

So, after spending about sixteen months in jail and being charged in the murder of his sister in law, Rayna Rison, Ray McCarty was released and charges were dropped in 1999. The case presumably once again went cold until about 2008.

It was then that a man named Rickey Hammons, who was serving time for an unrelated murder, asked to speak to authorities about Rayna's case. In 1993 Rickey was a teenager living at home with his parents and his sister, Jennifer. Jennifer was dating a man named Eric Freeman. Hammons would tell investigators that on the night of March 26, 1993 he was in the upper loft of a barn on his property smoking marijuana when a car pulled up on the property. Hammons would claim that Eric Freeman and Jason Tibbs were in the car and were having a conversation. At some point in their conversation the trunk of the car was opened and Hammons saw a woman inside. Due to whatever knowledge he had between the media or even town gossip Hammons believed that the woman was Rayna Rison.

It took another five years of investigating the situation before authorities would arrest Jason Tibbs in August of 2013. This came after investigators had not only spoken to Eric Freeman but had offered him immunity for his cooperation. Freeman would testify at Tibbs' November 2014 trial that Tibbs had asked him to take him to the veterinary clinic that Rayna worked at so he could talk to her. Freeman had agreed and they had taken Jennifer Hammons' car. According to Freeman after meeting up with Rayna, an argument between Rayna and Tibbs when she refused to go out with him. The argument became physical and Freeman testified that Tibbs began to strangle Rayna which led to her death. The two men then allegedly put her body in the trunk of Jennifer Hammons' car and drove back to the Freeman home while they decided what to do with her body as well as allegedly grab tools such as a shovel. Rickey Hammons had told investigators he had seen the men gathering tools before investigators ever spoke to Freeman. The two men then went to an area in which they had intended to bury her body but they had found the ground to be too hard to significantly dig a hole and ultimately her body was placed in a nearby pond where she was recovered on April 27^th. They had also gone back to the clinic at some point and removed Rayna's car from the parking lot.

The defense first argued that Freeman was lying. They pointed out that he was given immunity for the crime and claimed that he was “coached” by the prosecutors as to what to say at the trial. They also argued that Ray McCarty was the actual murderer although over the years there have been arguments over how sufficiently they were able to do so. In 2018 they argued that they were forbidden from telling the jury that McCarty was indicted by a grand jury. To be fair I am uncertain that is actually true but I can say that the jury was made aware of the fact that McCarty had been arrested for the murder and that he was considered to be not just a prime suspect but at some point the actual murderer.

I also want to be fair in saying that beyond the words of Freeman and Hammons, as well as the issue of finding Jason Tibbs' class ring in her car I am unsure what other evidence the prosecution had against Tibbs. It is unclear whether DNA was taken from inside the car but I suspect if there had been evidence that Tibbs, or even Freeman, had been behind the wheel the defense strategy would not have likely changed much. They had already argued that the class ring was found because Jason Tibbs and Rayna were friends and he had worked on her car. I believe if DNA had been found pointing to him elsewhere in the car they would have continued with this defense. There was no evidence that the defense would in any way attempt to make Freeman a suspect in the murder himself. If DNA had been found pointing to Freeman they would have been hard pressed to prove that Freeman's story implicating Tibbs was untrue and they would have had to come up with a theory in which Freeman would have had a motive alone to kill Rayna, of which I never found.

On November 7, 2014 the jury in the Jason Tibbs murder case returned with a guilty verdict after deliberating for five hours. The prosecution asked the judge to sentence him to fifty-five years but on December 20, 2014 the judge issued a sentence of forty years. An appeals court upheld the conviction and sentence in 2016.

In early 2018 Ray McCarty, who was still married to Rayna's sister Lori, was arrested and charged with assault. In February of 2018 McCarty committed suicide while still in jail. Most who knew him claimed that Rayna's murder and his previous charges had haunted him. In September of 2018 Jason Tibbs' defense filed in court seeking a new trial saying that there was “untested” evidence implicating Ray in Rayna's murder. This too is where they argued that they had not been able to present all the evidence they felt relevant to him in the 2014 jury trial. They claim that fibers found in Rayna's hair matched carpet from Ray's trunk. Proponents for Ray, including Rayna's own family, have claimed that the fibers were very common fibers found in many vehicles. A judge is expected to rule on this motion by the end of November 2018. As I write this it is the 13^th of November and there has not been a decision made as of yet.

I believe that in just about any case you can find people who will argue that the defendant has been unjustly convicted. Many convicted criminals have friends and family who have created websites on the Internet in general and also on sites such as Facebook that advocate for their innocence. Jason Tibbs' lawyer stated after his conviction that while he respect the jury and their decision, he believed they “got it wrong.” The Jason Tibbs case is no different in respect to having those who believe the jury convicted an innocent man. I think we would be amiss to say that there is not a possibility that this is true but I say this only with the idea that innocent people have been convicted, even executed in this country. That does not mean that I support their efforts or that I believe their claims are valid.

When it comes to the law and cases involving murder I will be the first to admit that I would like to see hard evidence, something that this case does not have. I will say that based on what I know of this case if the prosecution would have sought the death penalty I would not have supported it. I have often stated be that while I support the death penalty I only do so when there is no question whatsoever as to the guilt of the defendant. This is not such a case in my opinion. But, again, that does not mean that I believe the jury was wrong in their conviction or that I believe Jason Tibbs to be innocent.

There is the obvious problem with Ray McCarty. First he had a prior conviction against him in regards to Rayna, and he was on probation with an apparent no contact order at the time of her murder. Even still he admitted that he had in fact contacted her on the very night she disappeared. There is a lot of vague information surrounding the charges in that case or how they were discovered. As I have stated Rayna's family seemingly have never believed that Ray was responsible for her murder. While I cannot prove so, I get the impression that the only reason that Ray was even charged with the crime against Rayna was likely pushed by the State of Indiana and not the family. It is likely that the charges were mandatory when her pregnancy was discovered. It does not appear that he did any jail time and was given a sentence of probation for that crime. I will be the first to admit that Ray looks like a good suspect.

But then you have to look at Jason Tibbs as well as both Rickey Hammons and Eric Freeman. When it comes to Rickey Hammons people could argue he was looking for a deal in his other case. The problem with that theory is that Hammons was convicted in 2000, some eight years before he came forward and was sentenced to forty-five years. Then there is Eric Freeman. By the time investigators talked to him he was living outside of Indiana and by all accounts did not have a criminal history. In one sense prosecutors hurt themselves a little in giving Freeman immunity in order to hear his story. Reality is that without the immunity Freeman could have, and likely would have been charged in Rayna's murder simply by being present as well as helping in the disposal of her body. The list of charges that he could have faced is long. I suspect aside from murder charges he could have been charged with aiding and abetting and tampering with evidence among other things. Giving immunity to someone like this is often problematic for prosecutors and they must do so with care. Many times it is argued that the witness given immunity carried more blame than they are admitting to. That being said I believe this case was different.

There never seemed to be any sort of motive discovered for Eric Freeman to have been the primary aggressor in Rayna's murder. I cannot say if he personally knew her or not but I found nothing that indicated that they had any sort of connection with each other. The only connection I discovered was Freeman's friendship with Tibbs, who was connected to Rayna. Freeman had a girlfriend, Jennifer Hammons at the time and unlike the proposed motive against Tibbs, there did not appear to be any indication that Freeman was interested in Rayna. The fact of the matter is that Tibbs was an early suspect in the crime when his class ring was found in Rayna's car and while Tibbs claimed they were friends and he had worked on the vehicle it appears that he was the only one claiming this. I cannot say with complete certainty that this did or did not occur but what I can say is that by every thing I found if there was any sort of a friendship between the two it was not one of significance to the point in which anyone else in Rayna's life seemed to be aware. Prosecutors had discovered that while the two of them did know each other and dated, as it were, in middle school, there was no indication that Rayna remained interested in Jason Tibbs.

With all of this being said again it could be argued that Rickey Hammons did have a motive to lie but I think that motive falls flat beyond his possible hope that it would help him with a parole board down the road. It is unclear whether Hammons has been up for parole since Tibbs was convicted. According to the Indiana Department of corrections his earliest release date is August of 2019, nineteen years after his conviction of killing his former roommate the year prior. Through his guilty plea he was given a forty-five year sentence which was the minimum he could have received regardless so it appears that he faced no advantages by going to investigators. In fact, one could possibly argue that he put himself in more danger by informing on someone else.

While we could argue that Ray McCarty did have a motive, there seemed to be no evidence, nor witnesses to prove this in any way. Many have said that McCarty was his own worse enemy by being honest about going to the clinic on the night that Rayna disappeared. There are those who argue that people cannot be convicted on circumstantial evidence but that is simply not true. Nearly all cases that are taken to trial is based on circumstantial evidence. Some could argue that Freeman's statement is direct evidence as he revealed what he allegedly saw. The advent of DNA made the idea of direct evidence more plausible than ever before but as I stated earlier this is a case in which the defense could argue against DNA proving murder. This is most often the case in which a victim and perpetrator live together or at the very least have proven to have some sort of a relationship. DNA is helpful when it involves people that have no reasonably explained relationship.

Would I like to see more evidence in this case to prove Jason Tibbs did in fact murder Rayna Rison? Absolutely. You want to have all the evidence you can to make an informed decision. Many have argued that this was one of the biggest mistakes that the prosecution in the O.J. Simpson case made. They had a lot more evidence than they presented at trial believing they did not need to show the jury everything they had. The question I always end up asking myself in the end, no matter the legal result, is if the evidence and theories presented to the jury made sense. I have to say that in this case it does. I believe the jury got it correct. I find the latest filing by Tibbs' lawyer suspect considering that while yes, they have brought up McCarty thoughtout the years over and over, they brought this new filing, seeming to “double down” on McCarty since his died in February.

I do not expect a lot to develop from this latest filing. I considered putting this case off a while longer to see if a decision is reached but I would be honestly surprised if anything changes based on this argument from the defense. By my understanding these carpet fibers that they claim were found in Rayna's hair and “matched” those in McCarty's vehicle are also “untested” among other evidence that they admit is untested but claim implicate McCarty. If the defense had argued to have this alleged evidence tested and not filed for a new trial on this untested evidence I may have a different attitude as to what I believe may happen with this latest ruling. I could be wrong but I believe this was a grasping at straws effort for the defense.