Trial for accused murderers delayed

Submitted

RAY'MON JA'KEE ROGERS

Buy this photo

Submitted

JAMES BENJAMIN BRYANT

Buy this photo

  By BOB WHITE

bwhite@thenewsenterprise.com

ELIZABETHTOWN — The consolidated trial of two men charged with murder, scheduled to begin today, has been delayed at least a week.

James Benjamin Bryant, 28, and Ray’mon Ja’kee Rogers, 19, were indicted last spring on charges of murder, complicity to murder, complicity to robbery and attempted murder for the April 2007 shooting death of 17-year-old Marcus Pratt and near-fatal beating of then-16-year-old James Hollister.

Police said  Rogers, of Louisville, and Bryant, of Clarksville, Ind. drove the Jeffersonville, Ind. teens from the Louisville area to Elizabethtown’s Southend Commerce Park on Budco Lane on April 21, 2007 where they robbed the victims of about $1,000, fatally shot Pratt with a .45 caliber pistol and inflicted a near-fatal beating on Hollister.

Pratt’s body was found shortly after sunrise in the business park the next day and Hollister was found at a residence in the Ivy Point subdivision, where he’d fled after escaping his assailants.

Rogers was arrested the Monday following the shooting and lodged at the Hardin County Detention Center.

Bryant was arrested a week later in Indianapolis and also jailed. Both remain in custody.

In February, Hollister was among five southern Indiana teens arrested for brutally attacking a teenage girl outside Parkwood Elementary School in Clark County, Indiana a month earlier. The charges against him in that case are still pending.

According to the Hardin County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, the case against Rogers and Bryant will start next week.

 Bob White can be

reached at (270) 505-1750.