Machete man gives his side of the story

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

The man accused of stalking his ex girlfriend and attacking a golf club-wielding neighbor who tried to intervene with a machete on Halloween has posted his side of the story on You Tube, KFOR reports. Their report also includes photos from Facebook page that has apparently been deactivated.

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Stepdad: Police shot Verle Parton in the back

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

Police this week named Verle Deljit Parton, 18, as the man shot by police on Sunday.

With the name, I tracked down relatives and more information about Parton. Police from the OKCPD’s gang unit said he jumped out of a car with a gun after a brief police pursuit, then turned toward an officer before being shot SW 59 and Agnew.

His stepdad says he was shot in the back and may be paralyzed, details police could not confirm.

UPDATE 11.1

Police responded to my request for more info about the 10-year force veteran who shot Parton, Sgt. John Baker. Here’s what they e-mailed today:

Regarding your request for disciplinary information and weapons discharge records on Sgt. John Baker (the officer involved in the shooting occurring at SW 59th and Agnew on 10-28-12 at approx. 0940 – Case #12-090938). Sgt. Baker has had no disciplinary actions resulting in termination, demotion, or loss of pay, and the shooting on 10-28-12 was the first recorded incident of him firing his weapon outside of training.

Jason Gunkel, Parton’s stepdad, described a tense scene at the hospital.

Continue reading →

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OKC’s very own version of Jason Vorhees, and other frightening tales

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

Happy Halloween.

In slasher news, a man says he was attacked by a machete-wielding man wearing a painter’s respirator mask.

Randal Love, 45, of Oklahoma City, displays the bandage on his wound after a machete attack. Photo by Robert Medley

The man was puncturing the tires and smashing glass of his neighbor’s pickup when (victim Randal) Love went outside with a golf club and tried to detain him. Love said the man who attacked him is the ex-boyfriend of a woman who lives across the street from him. Love received a number of stitches in his arm.

This being the second machete crime in under a week, I had to ponder how many OKC residents own machetes. And my co-worker noted the whole unfortunate episode was so very “Jason.”

My intrepid colleague Robert Medley went to the scene of the latest machete attack, where he met victim Randal Love. Love was happy to show Medley his bloody, bloody gash. Medley was happy to show me the iPhone photo. I’ll go ahead and not publish that.

Then I found out something about my colleague Robert Medley. The gruesome machete wound was not the worst interview subject’s wound he’d laid his eyes upon.

I next learned of a story that has gone down as a classic in the annals of the newsroom.

Medley was sent on an assignment a few years once to get the story of a man tortured by his neighbors after being accused of “making eyes” at the girl next door, who was handicapped.

Well, her parents decided to torture the accused ogler.

Medley gets to the torture victim’s double wide with a photographer. Pit bulls, gravel road, middle of nowhere, etc. etc. you get the picture.

The man takes him to a corner.

He’d been tortured in the genitals. With wire. And he was about to prove it.

So, of course, he shows Medley his damaged goods in all of their glory, and inquires “Do you think I should go to the doctor?”

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Weekend round-up: Two men shot by police in separate Oklahoma City incidents

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

Two shot by Oklahoma City police

We in OKC got a break in homicides this weekend…only to be inundated with officer-involved shootings.

Two men were shot by Oklahoma City police officers within four days.

Details are pretty sparse so far.

Oklahoma City police investigate an officer-involved shooting Thursday in the parking lot of Buy For Less, 415 SW 59. Photo by Sarah Phipps, The Oklahoman.

Thursday, a man was acting strangely, walking in the middle of traffic near SW 59 and Walker Avenue. Police got there and the man moved into the parking lot of the Buy For Less Buy-Super Mercado. He lunged at officers, and they shot him. Initially, police said he pointed a gun at them. It turns out he had a lock-blade knife in his hand. Friday, Jerry Ray Pierce, 35, remained in critical but stable condition at OU Medical Center. For reasons unknown, the OU spokesman today said he could not give a status update on the man’s condition. I’m not sure why that is, since they gave one Friday – it could be the patient or his family changed his status to private to avoid inquiries like mine. Two officers shot Pierce and are now on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation. They are 30-year police veteran and supervisor Lt. Mike Hutchcroft, and officer Tyler Bartlett, both of the Santa Fe Patrol Division, police said.

Internal affairs has to interview the officers and over a dozen witnesses in that case, Capt. Dexter Nelson said.

Internal affairs has a lot on its plate these days.

A few days later, an 18-year-old man was shot while fleeing police. Continue reading →

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(Not) Finding Edward Hackett

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

My editor gave me a single task today: Find Edward Hackett.

Well, she wasn’t quite that…intense in her direction, but you get the picture. Hackett is the 77-year old Domino’s Pizza delivery man stabbed on a false delivery call before midnight Saturday in southeast Oklahoma City. We reported today that police arrested a trio of teenagers in the attack.

Police arrested Sethe Higgins, 15, and Keith Stewart, 14, on complaints of robbery with a dangerous weapon and Marcus Smith, 18, on complaints of robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to commit a felony and conspiracy to commit a felony.

Hackett’s stab wound left his organs protruding from his abdomen, but somehow, he is recovering and in fair condition at OU Medical Center.

Marcus-Smith

Sethe Higgins

The senseless crime left a lot of heads shaking in Oklahoma City. It also raised the questions: Who was Edward Hackett and why, oh why, is he delivery pizza in his golden years?

I left the office and headed southeast, toward Del City, Hackett’s town, to find out.

Continue reading →

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Saturday homicide in Oklahoma City

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

Update, 10.22: Police identified the homicide victim as Michael Donnell Rhodes.

Saturday, just before midnight, a man was shot to death inside his home in northwest Oklahoma City, next to a 3-year-old child who was unharmed. The man’s son heard a noise and discovered his father was dead.

I visited the home, 9409 Eagle Hill Drive, Sunday morning to try and talk to a relative or neighbor.

What happened at this point is up to homicide detectives to decipher, and it’s still pretty early. They have not provided a victim’s name. No one was home mid-morning today, though I did speak to two neighbors in the fourplex where the crime occurred. Neither man provided a name.

One neighbor said the couple lives at the home with a number of children, theirs and the children of relatives. In the below interview, he theorized one relative may have brought troublesome people into the family’s realm, but that, keep in mind, is a guess on his part that has not been vetted.

I posted our interview below. Sorry, because I ramble on, because I’m tired, which I blame on a lack of sleep. And that, in turn, I blame on being 8 months pregnant. Pregnant women don’t sleep. They do, apparently, waddle to homicide scenes. And ramble. Here it is:


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Soldiering on

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

Sometimes I get angry phone calls after we publish a story on a violent death, which is most of what I do. More typical, the sound of silence.

Today, I got a nice note from a co-worker on a story about Orlando Smith, Oklahoma City’s latest homicide. Nice, and totally depressing, on account of the content:

“Nice job on the story about the dead former co-defendants”

But hey, I’ll take it. Fueled by that, plus a 10-minute massage from massage school students stationed at the office today, plus the pumpkin spice latte (are you sensing a pattern of poor impulse control here?), I will soldier on in the task at hand: finishing a homicide spreadsheet.

Go.

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Weekend round up: Tragedy at police academy, and a homicide victim with a past

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

It was clear something was amiss today at the police station media room. Most media outlets sent reporters, joining the usual grunts who slog through the fat stack of weekend reports every Monday. A crowded media room is usually a bad sign for some poor soul out there.

Indeed, we’d gathered because more details had come to light today after learning over the weekend of the training accident and death of Oklahoma City police recruit Kelley Chase, 38. The full article is on newsok, but here’s a bit more information about Chase:

At the time of the accident, Chase was undergoing a test on the last day of a two-week self-defense techniques course.

Kelley Chase

During the six-minute rotation of simulated fights, he went to the ground several times with different instructors, hitting his head on a mat…
It’s an exercise in specific tactics and endurance, but also restraint; recruits should use force, but not too much of it, as they try to handcuff an attacker.
The recruits do not wear helmets or other head gear during the exercises.
When Chase hit the ground a final time, he did not get up. Nurses on standby at the training facility, 800 N Portland Ave., evaluated him. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Chase had hit his head in the Friday afternoon exercise. He underwent surgery but died Saturday morning. The medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

Sunday slaying

Sunday’s homicide sounded sadly familiar – man shot dead at an Oklahoma City apartment complex. This is a killing with a past. Victim Orlando Smith had been cleared in June of a 2009 murder charge. His shooting Sunday has that retaliatory gangland feeling, but police said that’s a feeling they can’t confirm.

Orlando Smith

Tracy Humphrey


Two years after a teenager was gunned down outside a nightclub, two men accused in that shooting have been killed themselves.
A jury found Orlando Joshawn Smith not guilty of murder in June.
Now Smith, 21, is dead, gunned down at a northwest Oklahoma City apartment complex.
He was shot about 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Whitby Court apartments, 7504 Knight Lake Drive, and died at a hospital, police report.
Smith faced a murder charge in the suspected gang-related fatal shooting of Dejontae Durham, 17, in November 2009 outside an Oklahoma City nightclub, records show…Tracey T. Humphrey, who was accused as an accomplice in the 2009 slaying, also was gunned down.

Here’s the full story.

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Oklahoma City police cadet Kelley Chase, 38, dies after training exercise accident

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Juliana Keeping


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A few wild allegations surface against an Oklahoma City principal

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Juliana Keeping

Allegations of cheating and fraud have surfaced against the principal of Douglass High School in Oklahoma City, and a pretty wild paper trail has risen into the public realm, too.

And that’s got me wondering if any criminal complaints might appear in the future. I couldn’t help but notice the below document contains some poorly-constructed sentences. Hey, I’m no grammarian, but my gut says it leaves something to be desired, credibility-wise. My thought is take it with a grain of salt or leave it. We only have half of the story at this point.

Oklahoma City Public Schools announced today Principal Brian Staples has been placed on paid administrative leave after being accused of fixing grades and hiding absences.

An affidavit sheds more light on these accusations. The document and a few highlights are below.
Continue reading →

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