After approximately three hours of deliberation a jury decided Lee Roy Odenbaugh, Jr. was guilty of two counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted first degree murder.

The decision came following Roy Odenbaugh taking the stand in his own defense and additional witnesses being called for both the defense and the state’s rebuttal portion of the trial.

According to Roy Odenbaugh, who had two previous felony convictions, one for possession of a firearm, Dr. Allen Spires gave him prescriptions for Klonopin and hydrocodone to treat depression/anxiety and bulging discs in his back on Dec. 1, 2002. Testimony from Spires confirmed the prescription dosage.  At his  appointment with Spires, Roy Odenbaugh indicated that he had suicidal thoughts, mental illness and depression, mainly due to numerous stressers.

“Just a bad time,” Roy Odenbaugh said, listing the cause of his stress. “Wasn’t getting enough work; had children at home; didn’t have a happy home.”

Roy Odenbaugh said he and his wife, Sondra Odenbaugh, quarreled that evening over drug use. Roy Odenbaugh said he wanted to quit doing drugs and she did not, but he agreed to purchase a half ounce of cocaine and split it with his wife to end the fight. He also took 40 of the 60 Klonopin he received earlier that day. The defendant said he saw Sondra Odenbaugh take Klonopin, but the toxicology report presented by Dr. Frank Peretti, who works with the state crime lab and as an independent pathologist, on Tuesday only picked up on cocaine in her blood.

The accused testified that his mother-in-law Jessie Mae “Sissy” Porter entered the trailer on Summerlin Lane Saturday, Dec. 2, 2006 yelling about work he said he had not promised to do that day. He was still in bed when she arrived.

“I got up and went to the kitchen, she was real mad,” Roy Odenbaugh said. “She swung at me and hit me in the face, and Jessica [Cooper] was right there with her.”

He further stated that Porter hit him with a golf club while his wife and stepdaughter, Cooper, hit and kicked him while he was down.

Roy Odenbaugh said he went back in the bedroom and wiped the blood from his head wound, caused by Porter’s blows with the golf club, on a sheet on the bed. Testimony from Sherry Gray, the nurse who examined Roy Odenbaugh after his arrest, said she saw no sign of head trauma and he did not report any pain from a head wound later in the day.

After wiping the blood from his head wound away, Roy Odenbaugh said he left the trailer, went to his mother’s house at 2012 Capella Drive, and washed his hair before speaking to his wife on the phone. He was assured, he said, that everyone would be gone from the trailer before he arrived.

Later in his testimony, Roy Odenbaugh said he lost control of himself at his mother’s house while still on the phone. Police records indicate less than an hour passed between the time a domestic violence call to the trailer regarding the first altercation was answered and the emergency call for the injured women. Earlier in the testimony, however, Roy Odenbaugh said he went back to his house and had the gun only to persuade them to leave.

He said he then shot Porter because he thought she was going to back over him; no witnesses testified that Porter’s vehicle moved. He shot Jessica Cooper because he thought she was going for the golf club he was hit with earlier, which was leaning on the porch; Assistant District Attorney Mike Ruddick pointed out that Roy Odenbaugh was between Jessica Cooper and the club. Carl Cooper, a member of Roy Odenbaugh’s defense team, asked Jessica Cooper if she could have reached the house if she really wanted to and instructed her to “disregard getting shot” when answering.

“If he hadn’t been there, I definitely could have gone to the house,” Jessica Cooper said.

Roy Odenbaugh said he did not see his wife when he went back to the trailer at all; he does not remember shooting her. Morehouse Parish Sheriff’s Office Lt. Chris Balsamo, however, testified Tuesday that Roy Odenbaugh admitted to shooting three people, including his wife, after a long car chase later in the day.

Wednesday, Balsamo testified that Roy Odenbaugh has acted a drug informant for 5 years who has closed numerous cases. This followed the defendant’s testimony that he has never been a drug snitch.

Melissa Lehr, an eyewitness, was also recalled to the stand as a witness for the defense.