Tokars Saga Nearing End
As written in the Marietta Daily Journal
Death Penalty Averted
A reported plea negotiation between Cobb County prosecutors and lawyers for Curtis Rower could bring to an end today the 4 1/2-year-old murder case pending against the man accused of killing Sara Tokars with a single shotgun blast on Nov. 29, 1992—a crime ordered by her prominent husband.
Cobb District Attorney Tom Charron and lawyers for Rower, who is set to be retried for murder after a jury deadlocked on that charge two years ago, have reportedly discussed a plea agreement in recent days that would allow Rower to avoid another death penalty trial.
Curtis Rower
Rower is set to appear this morning before Cobb Superior Court Judge George Kreeger on a motions hearing.
Reached at his office on Tuesday, Charron would not confirm or deny whether there had been a plea agreement reached in the case with Rower.
Rowers lead defense counsel, Edwin Marger, said only: "We've been offering a plea agreement for five years. I don't know what will happen, but we're going to make the offer again [today]."
Fred Tokars, a former Atlanta lawyer and part-time traffic court judge, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison earlier this year in Walker County for ordering the killing of his wife.
Jurors spared Tokars from a death sentence and instead sentenced him to life in prison.
If Rower does go to trial again, prosecutors will still be seeking the death penalty.
The 25-year-old Atlanta man was convicted in March 1995 of kidnapping with bodily injury and other crimes relating to the killing of Mrs. Tokars.
A jury in Columbia County near Augusta, however, deadlocked 11-1 on the murder charge against Rower, prompting Cobb prosecutors to move forward with the upcoming retrial in another effort to get the death penalty. Rower is currently serving live in prison for the kidnapping and robbery convictions.
Lawyers are set to begin picking a jury for the retrial on May 27 in Houston County, south of Macon. Once selected, the jury panel will this time be brought back to Cobb to hear testimony.
Though civil suits are still pending, the murder case against Rower is the last criminal case related to the killing of Mrs. Tokars that is still in the courts.
Intense publicity and public scrutiny have prompted the three previous trials in connection with the case to be moved far away from Cobb County and the Atlanta area. Recently passed laws will allow for a jury in the retrial to be picked elsewhere and brought back to Marietta.
In his first trial, Fred Tokars was convicted in Birmingham, Ala., in 1994 on federal charges of racketeering and arranging his wife's murder as part of a cocaine and money laundering conspiracy uncovered during the murder investigation.
Co-defendant Eddie Lawrence pleaded guilty to murder and federal crimes in exchange for his testimony and a live sentence with the possibility of parole into the federal witness protection program.
