Oklahoma sex offender fatally shot 6, then killed himself, official says
OKMULGEE, Okla. — An Oklahoma sex offender who was released from prison early shot his wife, her three children and the kids’ two friends in the head and then killed himself, authorities confirmed Wednesday as concerns grew about why he was free in the first place.
Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice said the victims had each been shot in the head one to three times with a 9-millimeter pistol when they were found Monday near a creek and in a heavily wooded area in rural Oklahoma.
The bodies apparently had been moved there from where they were killed, the scene “staged” before Jesse McFadden, a 39-year-old convicted sex offender, killed himself, Prentice said in the first major update on the case.
Families of the victims have questioned how McFadden, convicted two decades ago of raping a 17-year-old, was allowed to go free after being accused of soliciting nude images from another teenager while behind bars.
The discovery of the bodies near McFadden’s home in Henryetta, a town of about 6,000 about 90 miles east of Oklahoma City, came on the day that he was to stand trial on charges in that case.
Authorities have declined to release a motive for the shootings, but McFadden had vowed not to return to prison in a series of ominous messages to the accuser.
According to screen grabs of the messages, forwarded to KOKI-TV in Tulsa, Okla., by the now 23-year-old woman McFadden allegedly groomed from prison, he said he was having success at a marketing job and “making great money.” His “great life” was now crumbling, he wrote, because of the charges of soliciting and possessing images of child sex abuse.
Sex offender found dead in rural Oklahoma with his wife, children and two others kept the family ‘under lock and key,’ the wife’s mother says.
“Now it’s all gone,” he texted. “I told you I wouldn’t go back.”
“This is all on you for continuing this,” he said.
A solicitation conviction can mean a 10-year sentence; the pornography charge could mean 20 years.
Prentice declined to speculate on whether that is what led to the shooting.
“Everyone wants to understand why,” he said. “Normal people can’t understand why. People who perpetrate crimes like this are evil, and normal folks like us can’t understand why they do it.”
Authorities began a search after 14-year-old Ivy Webster and 16-year-old Brittany Brewer, who were visiting the family over the weekend, were reported missing. Concerns grew when McFadden failed to appear at his long-delayed jury trial.
Now family members of the victims are asking why McFadden, sentenced to 20 years in 2003 for first-degree rape in the assault of a 17-year-old, was freed three years early, in part for good behavior, despite facing new charges that he used a contraband cellphone in 2016 to trade nude photos with the woman, then 16. He was released in 2020 after 16 years and nine months, even though the charges could send him back to prison for many years if convicted.
“And they rushed him out of prison. How?” asked Janette Mayo. She said she was told that her daughter, Holly Guess, 35, and her grandchildren, Rylee Elizabeth Allen, 17, Michael James Mayo, 15, and Tiffany Dore Guess, 13, were shot to death.
“Oklahoma failed to protect families. And because of that my children — my daughter and my grandchildren — are all gone,” Mayo said. “I’ve lost my daughter and my grandchildren and I’m never going to get to see ’em, never going to get to hold them, and it’s killing me.”
Justin Webster, who said he allowed daughter Ivy to join a sleepover at the McFadden home not knowing anything about the man’s past, raised similar concerns about McFadden’s release.
“To get to save some other children, to make a change is what I want to do,” Webster told the Associated Press during a tearful interview Tuesday in Henryetta, expressing a determination to “tell Ivy’s story and our story and get our government officials and everybody to start speaking up loud and keeping those pedophiles in jail.”
“There needs to be repercussions and somebody needs to be held accountable. They let a monster out. They did this,” Webster said.
A spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday on why McFadden was released despite facing new felony charges.
Prosecutors objected to any early release from prison, noting that he tied a 17-year-old’s hands and feet to bedposts, cut her shirt off and raped her at knife point. He threatened to use the knife on her if she “did not shut up,” the records show.
The circumstances have alarmed Republican state Rep. Justin Humphrey, who chairs his chamber’s Criminal Judiciary Committee. He vowed to determine how a person could commit sex crimes in prison and be released on good behavior, and how McFadden was able to be in contact with minors while on sex offender supervision.
Republican state Rep. Scott Fetgatter, in whose district the killings occurred, said what happened was “absolutely unacceptable” and vowed to fix any potential loopholes in the law.
Court records show McFadden was charged with the new crimes in 2017 after the accuser’s relative alerted authorities. Set free in October 2020, he was arrested the next month and then released on $25,000 bond pending the trial, which was repeatedly delayed, in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
McFadden married Holly Guess in May 2022; what she knew of his record isn’t clear. Mayo said the family didn’t learn about her son-in-law’s criminal history until a few months ago.
“He lied to my daughter, and he convinced her it was all just a huge mistake,” said Mayo, of Westville. “He was very standoffish, generally very quiet, but he kept my daughter and the kids basically under lock and key. He had to know where they were at all times, which sent red flags up.”
Lee Berlin, a Tulsa-based defense attorney, told the AP on Wednesday that he’s shocked by what he described as a “panoply of errors” in the McFadden case. He said they include releasing McFadden from prison despite serious charges against him as well as low bail for McFadden once he was arrested on the new charges.
“I’m a sex-crimes defense attorney — this is all I do all day every day — and I’m like, how the hell does that happen?” Berlin said.
The case pushed the number of people slain in mass killings past 100 for the year, according to a database maintained by the AP and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
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