Published: February 26, 2008 08:33 pm         

Grand jury convenes in Clay double homicide case

Grand jury proceedings in a 20-year-old unsolved double homicide in Brazil started Tuesday, a special prosecutor in the case said.

Six jurors and at least one alternate were chosen for the proceedings, special prosecutor Del Brewer said. Another special prosecutor, David Powell, previously said that the grand jury would be chosen from citizens of Clay County.

The grand jury will review evidence in the case involving Ricky Mustard, 32, and his 16-year-old stepdaughter, Tonya Pickett, who were found dead in their home in the early morning hours of Nov. 19, 1988, both with shotgun wounds to the head.

During a recent news conference, Powell had said that “at this point it’s more than one” suspect being targeted, although that could change.

Powell and Brewer on Tuesday declined to comment on the previous statement.

Still, Brewer did say Tuesday morning that the investigation is ongoing.

“For information that’s out there, we will have detectives working on it,” he said.

Brewer and Powell on Tuesday morning declined to elaborate on the proceedings scheduled for the day.

At the end of the closed-door grand jury proceeding, the jurors either will return a “no bill,” meaning no charges, or an indictment, which charges someone with a crime.

The original investigation into the case did not result in an arrest, and the case went cold. A subsequent investigation 10 years later also was unsuccessful.

Then, in 2003, the Indiana State Police cold-case unit became involved.

A separate grand jury investigation was conducted in the same case in 2004. The focus of that proceeding was a former investigator who allegedly intentionally fed police bad information to lead them to the wrong suspects. A felony charge against him eventually was dismissed.

Powell previously indicated that the weapon used to kill Mustard and Pickett never was recovered, though he did say that a three-inch magnum, 12-gauge shotgun shell was recovered at the scene.

Austin Arceo can be reached at (812) 231-4214 or austin.arceo@tribstar.com.