Thursday, March 27, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Three weeks before Reed is to be tried for a $1 million armed robbery in 1989, a judge authorized the defendant's investigator to travel to Texas, California and the Bullhead City and Las Vegas areas.
"I'm not anxious to spend the county's money on a wild goose chase to Texas," Yuma County Superior Court Judge Tom Cole said Tuesday. But he told Reed he would get the benefit of the doubt.
The trial, set for April 15, could face another postponement.
Reed has been acting as his own attorney even though he has no formal law training. The judge appointed Jerrold Shelley to assist him.
The defendant claims he was in southern Texas around Dec. 11, 1989, when he is accused of robbing Yuma's Loomis Armored office. He is charged with armed robbery, conspiracy and theft of more than $1 million in cash and checks. His alleged accomplice has not been located.
Reed could not remember the names of people he met or the campgrounds he visited around Houston, Galveston and San Antonio, so investigator Danny Miller told the judge the work could not be done by phone.
Miller plans to fly to Texas for a three-night stay and drive as far north as Las Vegas and as far west as Santa Barbara to look for Reed's alleged accomplice.
Robert Norman Reed, the defendant's brother-in-law, is also named in the indictment. The defendant said his brother-in-law may be hiding at a campground in one of the areas Miller will visit.
Miller estimated the cost of the trips at about $3,600, although he acknowledged the estimates may be high.
The judge also denied requests for Reed to check out books from the county law library. Reed is not an attorney and therefore is not qualified to check out the books under rules set up by the county's presiding judge.
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