Convicted sex offender fatally shot 6 people in Oklahoma, then himself, police say
A convicted sex offender shot six people in the head and then himself, an Oklahoma police chief said Wednesday.
Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice said that the victims all sustained between one and three wounds to the head. He said that Jesse McFadden, 39, then shot himself.
"The evidence is that Jesse McFadden murdered six people and then killed himself. Beyond that, I don't know what his thought process was," Prentice said. "I'm not going to express a theory because I follow the evidence, and I don't have any evidence about what the motive was."
The six victims were identified as Ivy Webster, Brittany Brewer, Rylee Allen, Tiffany Guess, Michael Mayo and Holly McFadden.
Authorities began a search after Jesse McFadden failed to appear at his long-delayed jury trial on Monday in Muskogee County. The victims included his wife, her son and daughters, and two other teens who were visiting the family over the weekend.
Authorities discovered the victims Monday after going out to the McFadden property, which is located near the city of Henryetta, about 90 miles east of Oklahoma City.
The bodies of Webster, Brewer and Allen were found separately, about 150 yards from each other, Prentice said in the news conference, and about a quarter-mile from the McFadden residence.
Prentice said the other four bodies were discovered together, about 450 yards from the other three victims.
The weapon used in the shooting was a 9mm handgun purchased by Jesse McFadden's wife Holly in January of 2022, Prentice said.
The shooting happened as a series of ominous text messages — sent by McFadden to his young accuser hours before his trial was to begin on felony charges of soliciting and possessing images of child sex abuse — suggested that he blamed the woman for ending his "great life" and that he was determined not to return to prison.
According to screen grabs of the messages, forwarded to KOKI-TV in Tulsa 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."
"Now it's all gone," he texted. "I told you I wouldn't go back."
"This is all on you for continuing this," he finished.
A solicitation conviction can mean a 10-year sentence; the pornography charge could mean 20 years behind bars.
Muskogee County District Attorney Larry Edwards said the young woman shared the text messages with him as well.
Now family members of the victims are asking why McFadden, sentenced to 20 years in 2003 for first-degree rape in the sexual 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 cell phone 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, Holly McFadden's mother. She said she was told that her daughter and her grandchildren, Rylee Elizabeth Allen, 17; Michael James Mayo, 15; and Tiffany Dore Guess, 13, were all shot to death.
"Oklahoma failed to protect families. And because of that my children -- my daughter and my grandchildren -- are all gone," Mayo told The Associated Press. "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 his 14-year-old Ivy Webster 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 AP 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 knifepoint. At one 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 told The AP in a text that he's working with another lawmaker on legislation that would "stop tragedies of this nature from occurring again."
He said the effort also will involve trying 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.
Court records show McFadden was charged with the new crimes in 2017 after the young woman'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 due to 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.
Brittany Brewer's father confirmed that his daughter was among the dead. At a vigil Monday night, Nathan Brewer said "It's just a parent's worst nightmare, and I'm living it."
The grim discovery could push 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 a partnership with Northeastern University.