Convicted killer on trial in Texas triple homicide

[August 31, 2009]  LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- A man is headed to trial for allegedly gunning down a family in their rural Texas farmhouse within hours of killing two people in Missouri.

Levi A. King, 26, was convicted and sentenced in Missouri to life in prison and now faces the death penalty in Texas. Opening arguments in the Texas case were scheduled for Monday morning. If convicted and sentenced to death, the Texas punishment would take precedence under an agreement with Missouri.

King is accused of fatally shooting farmer Brian Conrad, 31; his pregnant wife, Michell Conrad, 35; and her 14-year-old son, Zach Doan. They were found dead in their remote, one-story frame farmhouse in September 2005.

Michell Conrad's daughter, who was 10 at the time, survived the rampage and called 911. Texas law enforcement agencies haven't released recordings of the call or information about what the girl saw or how she survived. It wasn't clear whether she would testify.

The crime caused widespread fear in the family's small community in Pampa, and Gray County District Judge Stephen Emmert later moved the trial to Lubbock.

Emmert issued a gag order that both prosecutor Lynn Switzer and one of King's defense attorneys, Maxwell Peck III, cited when they declined to talk about the case last week. Brian Conrad's mother, Sharon Conrad of Cleburne, also declined comment.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.

King pleaded guilty last year in the shooting deaths of Orlie McCool, 70, and his 47-year-old daughter-in-law, Dawn McCool. Their bodies were found by a relative in a rural Pineville, Mo., home on Sept. 30, 2005 -- the same day authorities in the Texas Panhandle discovered the bodies in the Conrads' home.

Missouri authorities said King left the state in Orlie McCool's Dodge pickup truck, driving south and then west on Interstate 40 before coming upon the Conrads' home about 10 miles north of I-40.

King was caught the same night trying to re-enter the United States at the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas. Prosecutors and law enforcement haven't said what may have prompted the attacks.

When he was arrested, authorities found in his truck four loaded weapons, several with rounds in the chambers. One of the weapons was a .38 caliber handgun taken from the McCool's home, authorities said.

Investigators have said they also found a name tag bearing Brian Conrad's name in the vehicle.

Nanci Gonder, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office in Missouri, said if King is acquitted in Texas he will be returned to Missouri to serve his two consecutive life sentences.

[Associated Press; By BETSY BLANEY]

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