[01/29/01] Fifteen Warren County residents will decide if a county man accused of shooting his father-in-law and then alluding police for more than two days will stand trail.

Garland Barnes, 23, 212 Wells Road, was taken into custody Oct. 30 after Vicksburg Police and the Warren County Sheriff’s Department surrounded a mobile home on Fairview Acres he was in.

Barnes’ father-in-law, Charles Ross, 6150 Fisher Ferry Road, was hospitalized for four days after being shot once in the stomach Oct. 27 on Wells Road.

Police, along with the Sheriff’s Department, spent the weekend after the shooting on horseback and on foot searching a wooded area off of Wells Road to find Barnes.

Barnes is being held in the Warren County Jail on charges of aggravated assault.

In all, the January term of the grand jury will hear evidence in 81 cases, down from the 104 cases presented in October. Eighty-two were heard in July and 61 were presented in May.

Among those being presented are 15 bad check cases, seven business burglaries, four embezzlement cases and 18 drug cases.

“This is about an average size grand jury for us,” District Attorney Gil Martin said. “There aren’t a lot of violent crime cases, and that is good.”

The grand jury will be presided over by Warren County Circuit Court Judge Isadore Patrick and is expected to end Thursday.