1977-04-20 Sealed

Kathy Jo Sutton's Role in legal steps following the murder of a Pizza Hut manager has courthouse observers guessing.

Her divorce yesterday was assumed to be a step to permit her to testify for the state against her ex-husband, David Grijalva, 25, also a suspect in the slaying of Jeanette Powers, the restaurant manager.

Miss Sutton's lawyer, however, has drawn attention to a typewritten and signed statement used during her Jan. 20 examining trial.

Both Mrs Sutton and Grijalva are being kept in Potter County custody on charges of capital murder in the Jan. 11 restaurant homicide.

Grijalva yesterday went to court seeking a writ of habeas corpus to free him. District Judge Edward B. Nobles denied the writ.

During the hearing on the writ application, Miss Sutton's Lawyer rose to object to a question asked Miss Sutton's mother by Asalstant District Attorney Dick Stokes.

District Attorney Tom Curtis challenged the defense lawyer's right to address the judge during Grijalva's bearing on the application for a wrlt. Judge Nobles was willing to have the mother answer the question until Grijalva's lawyer, Ken Tarlton, adopted the objection.

After the habeas corpus hearing, Miss Sutton's lawyer took from the hands of a newspaper reporter a file of legal documents related lo the murder case.

Inside the file folder was a transcript e of the Jan. 20 examining trial for Miss Sutton. Attached to the last page of the transcript was a copy of a typewritten statement describing activities of Kathy Sutton the night the Pizza Hut manager was slain.

The lawyer said he wanted to make sure the written statement "sealed."~

The statement, which had lain available as a public record In the office of the district clerk until yesterday. seemed to take on sinister significance as the lawyer hustled it away from the reporter to Judge Byrd's office via a detour by the clerk's office.

Two reporters accompanied the lawyer to the JP's courtroom, where Judge Byrd told them, "Get outa here! I don't wanna have a thing to do with either of you! Please!"

The lawyer and the JP disappeared behind the slammed door of Judge Byrd's private office. When the lawyer and JP emerged, the written statement was sealed Inside a while envelope.

The lawyer then look the file enfolding the transcript and the now secret statement to the office of the district clerk.

The statement, offered and read silently by Judge Byrd during the examining trial in January. was sealed despite a paragraph in the state code o! criminal procedure which mays, "The same rules of evidence shall apply to and govern a trial before an examining court that apply to and govern a final.

Judge Byrd said today the Kathy Satton statement in the first he has ever sealed.

The statement. spotlighted by the lawyer's pursuit of secrecy, says Kathy Sutfon went Inside the Plaza Hut the night the manager was slashed and battered and left dead.

Until the Lawyer's protection of the statement yesterday after his client's divorce, the statement had drawn little curiosity.

Miss Sutton has ben ordered held for grand jury action.

The grand jury meets tomorrow