Sanity evaluation performed

Both District Attorney Bobby Bland and defense attorney Lawrence Barber will have until early August to review and perform their own research on the sanity evaluation report taken by a Midland doctor of Jan David Clark, Judge Stacy Trotter said Tuesday.

Before proceedings began in the 244th District Court, Trotter spoke privately for 20 minutes to Bland and Barber in his office.

While waiting in the courtroom Clark appeared in a beige jumpsuit talking and laughing with sheriff's deputies.

Once court proceedings resumed, Trotter said a psychiatric evaluation was performed on Clark by Dr. Perry Marchioni in April.

Bland and Barber received Marchioni's final report on June 4.

Clark is accused of killing his wife Susan K. Clark in their 3547 Ferguson Ave. home.

Trotter ordered the report to remain sealed Tuesday and allowed time for both parties to review the report and conduct their own research.

Both parties will be back in court in early August to schedule a date to go to trial.

Trotter said he expects Clark's trial to begin in either October or November of this year.

According to a probable-cause statement, Clark said he was holding his wife's face to the floor of their carpeted master bathroom when the exorcized spirit from her body entered his, causing him to kill his wife.

Preliminary autopsy results showed Susan Kay Clark was suffocated. Investigators found the 59-year-old woman wrapped in a bed sheet on her back with a cross and a sword placed atop her body.

In a 2008 jailhouse interview, 60-year-old Clark said he was innocent and claimed he shared a cell at the Ector County Detention Center with 10 demons.