AG REQUESTS DELAY IN SENTENCING

BENTON -- Michael Wayne Summers, convicted in August of killing his father in mobile home fire sparked during a methamphetamine-cooking session, continues to sit in jail waiting to learn his fate.

Half a state away, officials in Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon's office are less than candid about why it's taking so long to send Summers to prison -- if, indeed, he goes to prison.

Nixon's office on Friday asked for another delay in the sentencing of Summers of Kennett. Sentencing by 33rd Circuit Presiding Judge David Dolan has been rescheduled several times.

A jury in August convicted Summers of second-degree murder in the October 1997 death of his father, Norman Robert Shell, 64, of rural Bollinger County.