Former prosecutor on Sasser investigation says mistakes were made before killings

On Friday evening, the Glynn County Police Department released all of the documents and video  related to the investigations of Cory Sasser in May and June of this year.

But, before that, Action News Jax reporter Courtney Cole spoke to a former prosecuting attorney for the Glynn County District Attorney’s Office.

He told her that Sasser should have been arrested after the incident at Moondoggys Pizza on Tuesday, June 26, since he then would have been behind bars the night of the killings on Thursday, June 28.

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On June 26th, suspended Glynn County police Lt. Cory Sasser walked into Moondoogys Pizza and made a threatening gesture to his estranged wife, Katie Sasser, and the man she was seeing, John Hall, Jr.

Sasser was free on bond and, according to attorney Keith Higgins, who is former prosecuting attorney for the Glynn County District Attorney’s Office, the gesture was enough to put him in jail.

"They did not need a warrant for his arrest. There was a long standing protective order in the divorce case that was in effect since May 22 that restrained Cory Sasser from having any contact, whatsoever, with Katie Kettles,” Higgins told Action News Jax.

Higgins said that a threatening gesture would have been a violation of the protective order Kettles had in place.

Sasser was facing domestic charges from a incident that occurred on May 13.

Days later, reports says, he attempted suicide.

Sasser reportedly kicked two officers and had to be shocked with a stun gun during the incident.

Glynn County police confirmed that a judge denied their request to search his truck.

While the Glynn County Police Department couldn’t tell Action News Jax why a judge would have denied the request, Higgins said it likely had do with what officers presented to the judge as evidence for needing to search the truck.

“Based on what was presented to the judge, the judge would have made a determination that there were not sufficient grounds to form that belief,” Higgins said.

Higgins said he believes everything would have been different if the district attorney and the magistrate judge had not agreed to allow Sasser to go free on bond.

“Well, there are essentially three government officials, if they had acted responsibly, Katie Kettles and John Hall Jr. would still be alive today: the district attorney, by agreeing to a bond in this case had they not agreed to a bond, the magistrate judge would have most likely not have set one; The magistrate court judge, who then set a bond and allowed him to get out of jail; and the police, who did not immediately arrest him when they had sufficient grounds to do so,” Higgins said.

As our Action News Jax team continues to look through the documents and video of the Cory Sasser investigations in May and June, we will bring you the latest.

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