Stan Geiger

Another Funky Murder Tale

Not long ago, a Tulsa man murdered his wife. He made up a BS tale about a home invasion. His story didn't hold water. He was arrested.

Now, another interesting case has hit the news. This time, the husband was murdered---in his own front yard a hair north of Sand Springs. As with the previous case, the only witness to the crime, according to reports, is the spouse. And though the cops, to date, are calling this a random act, I see flags.

So the story goes, the wife and the husband were in the garage at 10:45 in the evening, moving a boat. A 13-year-old daughter was asleep in the house. A couple of dudes, armed and wearing masks, approached. The husband engaged them physically and was shot twice in the head. The wife escaped without a scratch. The wife claims one of the masks of one of the assailants was removed during the scuffle, revealing a black man with braids. The assailants fled in the family pickup truck.

Now, it is possible that's the way it went down. But statistics show most murder victims know their murderers, and that most murder victims have criminal records. According to reports, the surviving wife did not recognize the assailants, and the murder victim was just an average, everyday citizen.

Bypassing that issue, other questions arise.

It's summertime; school's out; it's not even 11 o'clock. Yet a 13-year-old girl isn't talking on the phone, watching TV, playing with her computer, texting her BFF or painting her toenails. She's in bed.

The murder happened in a neighborhood---at 10:45. An altercation; two shots fired into a guy's head; presumably you have a screaming wife that witnesses the whole thing; the assailants steal a pickup and go speeding away. Yet---from what I've seen reported at least---the neighbors neither heard nor saw anything.

The assailants, though going to all the trouble to launch this attack and kill a man, stole nothing but the family pickup, which they dumped at an apartment complex a few blocks away. The best guess here would be they parked their car, took a walk, committed the crime, drove the family pickup to where they had parked their car, switched vehicles and drove away with nothing gained. Strange behavior for a couple of random armed marauders, I'd say.

The wife claims to have been a pointblank witness to her husband engaging in mortal combat with two assailants. She had access to a garage. No doubt there were weapons available, a shovel, an ax. Yet, she just stood there and watched?

I have heard no reports of the typical frantic 911 call. No dash into the house to make the call as her husband was fighting two intruders in the front yard?

And then comes the biggest question of all: Why is this woman still alive?

I mean you don't hang any longer for killing two people than you do for killing one. There was, according to reports, one witness that saw the whole thing up close and personal---including the removal of one of the killer's masks. And she was right there. Why not kill the wife, too? Why just jump in a pickup and leave the one person that could fry you in court alive?

Funky stuff in a local murder once again. If I were an investigator, I'd look deeply into love lives. I'd look deeply into finance. One of the two is usually the motive in a spousal murder.

I guess I should again issue a disclaimer at the close: It's more than possible that the version being portrayed in the media reports is quite correct. As the old saying goes, all I know is what I read in the papers. I'm just analyzing and supposing.

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