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Sentencing in Purk murder case reset to Aug. 11

TOLEDO — Sentencing on his first-degree murder conviction for Tait Otis Purk has been reset to Aug. 11 in Tama County District Court.

Judge Mitchell E. Turner filed the motion this week. Purk, 51, was originally scheduled to be sentenced today. The court order does not state a reason for the sentencing delay.

Purk was convicted on May 10 by an Iowa County jury in the death of Cora Ann Okonski, then age 23, who disappeared in Tama in April of 2000. Okonski or her body has never been found. The trial was moved from Tama County to Iowa County on a change of venue.

Turner heard arguments for a new trial and the prosecution’s resistance on July 14. At that time the judge said he would attempt to rule on the trial motion prior to the sentencing date.

Since then, a six-page brief supporting the motion for a new trial was filed by defense attorney Scott Hunter. In it he claims legitimate issues in the May trial included whether Okonski is dead, whether Purk caused her death and whether he acted with premeditation.

The brief states the admission of Purk to a witness he killed and buried Okonski is not corroborated and questions whether evidence of other “bad acts” by Purk in the trial should have been allowed.

It is charged claims of prior domestic violence heard in the trial “appeals to the jury’s sympathies, it arouses a sense of horror and shock and provokes the jury’s instinct to punish.”

In the resistance filed by Tama County Attorney Brent Heeren evidence “easily” connects Purk to a motive through testimony involving a pickup truck theft, burglary and past violence against Okonski. Heeren wrote the defense “failed to establish grounds necessary to sustain a motion for a new trial” and contends the verdict of the 12-member jury should stand.

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