Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Testimony Continues In Trial Of Joe Dansby; Juror Dropped (cont) (cont)

color, telling the court he had pieced it together from parts of other bikes. She said he did ride the bike, but didn't know if he had ever ridden as far as Bluff City or not.

Following the murders, she said, she saw Joe picking up .22 casings from his yard and started helping. She said they picked up "a bunch," and threw them away, but couldn't say where.

Testimony for the day ended then, picking up the next morning, Thursday, April 17, with testimony from Wilmer Page Jr. of Rosston, who was brought in on a stretcher, as he has been in an area nursing home.

At the time of the murders, he was living west of County Road 47 and south of Highway 299.

He was able to remember May 17, 1992, because the county road was blocked. He walked up the road and talked with Roger Glass who told him of the murders.

Page told Glass of a 10 speed bicycle missing from his house, saying it had turned up missing either Friday or Saturday.

Page was unable to recall when he noticed the bike missing, saying it was either on May 16 or May 17 in '92. He said it had last been seen on Thursday, May 14.

There had been two identical bicycles bought for his daughters, he said. Officers came to his house four or five times to take pictures of the remaining bike, and later purchased the one there.

Once Page's testimony ended, Betty Dansby was brought back to the stand for cross examination.

She said Joe was gone between an hour and an hour and a half to get water from the well and didn't leave the home again until they went to bed.

Again she said he wasn't there when she got up in the night to go to the bathroom, but was in bed when she woke up Sunday morning.

When she got up in the night, she looked out the kitchen window, but didn't see Joe. As this wasn't unusual, she wasn't alarmed and didn't leave the house to look for him.

Thomas took the stand, telling of his involvement in the case. He said he got involved at 4 or 5 p.m. when the search began, but was home when the bodies were found.

Morman and Duvall called Thomas to the second scene, but it was dark when he arrived and he collected no evidence at the time.