BY JERRIE WHITELEY and MARY JANE FARMER
Herald Democrat
SHERMAN -- Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown said Tuesday that the Texas cases against Jason Lee Belew, 34, won't keep him from being extradited to Oklahoma to face a murder charge in the death of 11-year-old Dakota Hughes in Cartwright, Okla.
"Our cases are minor compared to what is going on there," Brown said. He said he hasn't heard from anyone in Oklahoma about withdrawing the Grayson County cases, but when he does, he will make that happen.
He said he will keep the Grayson County cases available to be filed just in case they are needed after Belew is prosecuted in Oklahoma.
Belew faces three Grayson County cases including evading arrest, resisting arrest and criminal mischief.
Belew was arrested at 3 p.m. Sunday on a criminal mischief warrant out of Grayson County at a house in the 200 block of North Holly, just outside of Sherman.
On Monday afternoon, he signed an extradition order allowing him to be sent back to Oklahoma to face the murder charge.
Authorities contend that Belew killed Dakota Hughes in the early morning hours Sunday after a night of drinking with Hughes' aunt.
Emily Redman, district attorney for the 19th District in Oklahoma, said the little girl suffered injuries to her face, head, neck and genitalia.
Just a few weeks shy of her 12th birthday, Hughes was a sixth-grader at Colbert Middle School.
Colbert ISD Superintendent Jarvis Dobbs said the district was just trying to have a normal day Tuesday. He said the students who were closest to Dakota Hughes were told about her death on Sunday. Those students were not in school on Monday. He said the little girl's older sister is a senior in the school district and was not at school either Monday or Tuesday.
The district, he said, would do all that it can to make the appropriate counseling available for the students who need it.
The Oklahoma state medical examiner had not made a ruling on the cause or manner of death by Monday evening, spokeswoman Cherokee Ballard told media outlets.
Redman told reporters she has not made a decision, at this point, about seeking the death penalty against Belew.
The charges Belew currently faces are not his first brush with the law. Grayson County court records show that he pleaded guilty in March of 2003 to a charge of assault causing bodily injury and received one year probation, and deferred adjudication. The records show Belew paid all his mandated court costs and fines in relation to that conviction.