Letterman murder trial postponed as defense seeks release of ailing 60-year-old
TEXARKANA, Ark. — The trial of a Texarkana man charged in his wife’s 1991 shooting death has been taken off the November calendar, and his lawyers are now asking a judge to release him from jail on a GPS monitor, citing his declining health.
Michael Wayne Letterman, 60, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Billie Jean Letterman, 21. His jury trial in Miller County Circuit Court had been set to begin Nov. 16. On Nov. 3, at the defense’s request, Circuit Judge Wren Autrey continued the trial and set a special hearing for March 23, 2027, on two defense motions to dismiss the case, court records show. No new trial date has been set.
The defense motions argue that the 35-year delay in charging Letterman, and evidence lost or ruined over that time, have cost him a fair trial. TXKtoday reported on those motions Monday. Defense attorney Rickey Hicks appeared with Letterman at the Nov. 3 hearing.
Request for release
On Wednesday, attorney Luther Sutter filed a renewed motion asking the court to release Letterman on his own recognizance or, failing that, to lower his $500,000 bond. Letterman has been in the Miller County jail since his arrest on Oct. 15, 2025, and has not been able to post bond, the motion says.
The bond was set at Letterman’s first appearance in October 2025. The record of that hearing shows prosecutors had recommended $900,000. The court’s conditions for any release were a GPS ankle monitor and confinement to his daughter’s home except for court, medical care and meetings with his lawyers. A no-contact order was also entered.
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Circuit Judge Carlton D. Jones denied an earlier request to lower the bond after a hearing on Feb. 10. The new motion argues that circumstances have changed since then:
- A new judge. Jones recused from the case on Aug. 10, and the motion says Autrey has not yet considered whether Letterman should be released before trial.
- A longer wait. By the March hearing, Letterman will have been held for more than 17 months without a trial, and no trial date will be set until the motions are decided.
- His health. The motion says Letterman is insulin-dependent, has had partial amputations of both feet and has diabetic eye disease. It says the jail sent him to the hospital in December 2025 and February 2026, and that he has since had surgery on both eyes at UAMS.
“A man in that condition, wearing a GPS monitor and confined to his daughter’s home, presents no real risk of flight,” the motion says. It argues that the $500,000 cash amount “adds nothing” to the conditions already set “except to keep Mr. Letterman in jail.”
The motion also notes that the state’s case rests largely on the account of Billie Jean Letterman’s daughter, who was 6 when her mother died. She testified at a June hearing that she saw Letterman hold a gun to her mother’s head before it went off.
The motion asks for a hearing at the court’s earliest available date. The online docket showed no response from the prosecutor’s office and no hearing set as of Thursday.
Letterman told investigators in 1991 that the gun went off as he reached for it after his wife picked it up. The case went decades without charges before he was arrested last year. First-degree murder carries 10 to 40 years or life in prison, and prosecutors added a firearm enhancement in June that allows up to 15 more years.
Letterman is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.