An Arkansas man charged with stabbing a Jackson man to death and setting his house on fire will undergo a mental evaluation before he returns to court.
Randall Edward Secrease, of Harrisburg, Ark., appeared before Judge Blake Anderson in City Court for a preliminary hearing Thursday. Secrease's attorney asked that he be sent for a forensic evaluation, and Anderson agreed.
Jackson police have charged Secrease, 45, in the Dec. 7 slaying of James Blaine Divine III, 36. He was arraigned last Friday on charges of first-degree murder, arson, tampering with evidence and theft of property.
"We cannot set a future court date because we do not yet know when the court will receive the results of the forensic evaluation," Anderson told Divine's family in court.
Attorneys met with the family in private to discuss these developments.
An affidavit said Secrease admitted to striking Divine with a stick, stabbing him in the upper chest, setting his house on fire after dousing it with gasoline and stealing his van, which he took to Memphis and burned.
The affidavit said authorities have concluded Divine was killed while trying to protect Brandy Delgratta, Secrease's girlfriend, after Secrease assaulted her.
Divine was found dead in the bathroom of his partially burned home at 166 Chickering Road in North Jackson.
On Saturday, Divine's mother, Claudia Divine, raised questions about how firefighters searched the house. Although the fire happened Dec. 7, a fire investigator did not find Divine's body until Dec. 12. Claudia Divine said she wanted to know the results of the department's review of its search procedures.
Jackson Fire Chief Max Stewart has said the fire department performed two searches of the house Dec. 7, but that firefighters didn't know there was a body in the house because of the conditions inside.
In a phone interview Thursday, Stewart said the department has finished its internal investigation and established a new standard operating procedure that went into effect Monday.
"From this point on, firefighters will do a preliminary investigation on the day or night of a fire, and will then return the next morning after the sun comes up," he said. "You can't do a proper investigation when a house is still full of smoke and when debris is in the air. The morning after a fire, after 8 a.m., the new crew will go to the scene of a structure fire and do another investigation. The light of day allows you to see what you could not see the night before.
"There were many factors involved in this case," Stewart said. He said there was an attic fire that caused sheetrock to collapse everywhere and that neighbors told firefighters they did not think anybody was in the house. He said mail had not been collected from the mailbox for some time.
Stewart said it is regrettable what happened Dec. 7 and that firefighters extend their deepest sympathies to the family.
— Jordan Buie, 425-9782
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