Wynn’s plea date postponed

Published 2:11 pm Monday, April 2, 2012

Clifford Wynn, the Selma man accused of the 2005 rape and murder of a Clanton Walmart employee, did not enter a plea Monday as originally scheduled.

Circuit Court Judge Sibley Reynolds granted Wynn and his legal representation a continuance so they could review new evidence obtained by the prosecution, according to Jenny Hamilton, spokeswoman for District Attorney Randall Houston’s office.

A new plea date has yet to be set, Hamilton said.

Wynn was arrested in December 2008 for the crimes but was released in August 2009 when a grand jury found evidence insufficient to warrant a formal charge.

Houston told The Clanton Advertiser in February that he asked the Autauga County Sheriff’s Office and the Alabama Bureau of Investigation to continue their investigation after Wynn was released.

New evidence emerged, Houston said, and Wynn was indicted by an Autauga County grand jury in February.

The victim, Patricia Gayle Lasserre, 53 at the time of her death, was last seen leaving Clanton Walmart at 8:21 p.m. on Dec. 18, 2005. She was traveling Autauga County Road 1 and was seven miles from her home at the time of her murder.

Each of the charges against Wynn, 50, carries punishment of 10-99 years, or life in prison.

He is being held at the Autauga Metro Jail on unrelated charges.