JERRY R. BAILEY

Four years after his death, the memory of former coach Jerry R. Bailey is kept alive in the Sapulpa community.

The shock of the popular teacher-coach's death numbed students and faculty at Sapulpa High School. Classes were dismissed. A wrestling tournament slated here moved.

But the shock is gone and Bailey's contribution to sports in Sapulpa remain.

Each year, the Jerry Bailey Tribute Trophy is presented to the SHS athlete who best exemplifies the spirit of the popular coach -- "to a student of outstanding character who is spiritually alive, intellectually alert and physically disciplined."

An athletic facility at the school, completed less than a year after his death, bears his name.

OKMULGEE -- It is January 22, a haunting day for Paul Reagor Jr.

Four years ago this morning the former Sapulpa High School assistant principal disappeared with coaching colleague Jerry Bailey, whose bloody body was found a day later near Bixby in the trunk of Reagor's car.

A Tulsa County jury convicted Reagor of second degree murder in Bailey's death and sentenced him to a term of 10 years-to-life nearly 2 1/2 years ago.

But today, Reagor, 36, remains free on a $35,000 bond, walking the streets of his home town, awaiting an appeals court ruling which may grant him a new trial in the case. He lives here with his mother -- his wife having divorced him, taking their children to live in another state.

He has never been to prison and spent only a short time in jail, although several times prior to the trial he was sent to state hospitals for psychiatric treatment.

"Most people who knew him before couldn't believe it when he was arrested," said one city resident to remembers Reagor during his coaching days at Okmulgee as being 'quite calm, a peacemaker'. "Still there was considerable resentment when he came back here. It's just hard to believe that he's still not gone to prison."

Acquaintances of Reagor say he was employed by a roofing company following the trial and worked on job sites in several states. He has not worked, however, since he was involved in a truck-pedestrian accident a year ago, on the third anniversary of Bailey's death.

Police reports show that Reagor was struck by a semi-tractor trailer on a highway near his mother's home about 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 22, 1979 -- approximately three years to the hour after Bailey was stabbed numerous times and left to die in the trunk of Reagor's car.

"Witnesses said Reagor ran in front of the truck and lowered his head like he was tackling it," said Okmulgee Chief of Police Vernon Hodge. "He was injured, but apprently not seriously. He was back on the streets in just a few days."

Don Gasaway, the defense attorney for Reagor, contends that his client was insane at the time of Bailey's death.

"I think he was crazy then and I think he's still crazy," said Gasaway, whoc claimed he was unable to communicate with his client during preparations for the trial.

In his appeal of Reagor's 1977 conviction, Gasaway maintains that his client was not properly advised of his rights against self-incrimination by officers who found him in a vacant house near Bailey's body. Because of this, he says statements of confession which Reagor allegedly made to other officers should have been inadmissable in the trial.

The appeal further alleges that: the trial court erred in its admission of evidence concerning Reagor's psychiatric condition and in its instructions to the jury; inflammatory statements made by the DA in his closing argument created a state of passion and prejudice in the jury; the state failed to prove either Reagor's pre-meditation or insanity in the case.

Part of the appeal concerns a written statement by a staff physician at Eastern State Hospital which Gasaway says was "very incriminating" for his client. The statement claimed that Reagor admitted, in April 1977, that "he was putting on all his psychotic symptoms . . . His attorney had asked him to put on the psychotic act for three to four years and he was under the impression that the charges would be dropped."

Gasaway said the incriminating statement was admitted, but the complete hospital report was not.

The attorney also said his investigation "ruled out coaching jealousy" as a motive for the slaying, adding that he is still not positively convinced that Reagor murdered Bailey.