Shattuck guilty of plotting to kill sister

By Tom Blakey

October 04, 2008 09:39 pm

— A jury deliberated for three and a half hours Friday night, before finding Bruce Lee Shattuck, 57, guilty of solicitation of first-degree murder.
The jury recommended Shattuck serve 40 years in prison. District Judge Tom Lucas will pronounce formal sentencing at a later date.
In closing remarks, Assistant District Attorney Mike Tupper said Shattuck was "someone so cold, cruel and sick as to want his own sister dead."
"He's going to want to kill her for the rest of his life," he said.
Tupper asked the jury to sentence Shattuck to 60 years in prison to tell Shattuck: "We know what you did, you did not get away with it and today in this county, you're going to be held criminally responsible."
Shattuck is already serving 20 years at Oklahoma State Prison in McAlester for an April 2005 conviction of solicitation of first-degree murder in Washington County, for offering a man $1,000 to kill his sister, Sandra Louise Lee. Last October, Shattuck allegedly offered $2,500 to an inmate at the Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington, to kill Lee.
Testimony indicates Shattuck was angry over a trust fund left by his mother, and felt Lee had attempted to tie up his inheritance.
Thursday, Billy Hampton testified he was an inmate at Joseph Harp in October 2006, when Shattuck plotted with him to have his sister murdered. Hampton said Shattuck provided him with a map to his sister's residence, and told him about valuables inside the residence so he could make the murder look like a robbery.
Shattuck's attorney Thomas Mortenson, in final remarks, said Hampton approached Shattuck in prison in order to scam him out of money.
"He's a scam artist. He approached Bruce Shattuck. He proposed the deal. He solicited Bruce Shattuck," Mortenson said.
Shattuck, before he went to prison, "had plenty of opportunity to cause his sister harm," Mortenson said.
"He's a blowhard. He never hurt anybody, even when he had the chance. Yes, he's threatened her in and out of prison. At the end of the day, who cares?"
Tom Blakey 366-3540 tblakey@normantranscript.com