Oklahoma Sheriff and County Officials Caught On Tape Discussing Hiring Assassins to Kill Local Journalists
Oklahoma’s Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) on Monday called for the resignation of the McCurtain County sheriff and several county officials reportedly caught on a leaked audio tape discussing hiring hitmen to kill local reporters and lamenting that lynching Black people is no longer acceptable.
“There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office,” said Stitt.
“I will not stand idly by while this takes place,” the Republican concluded.
The FBI announced an investigation into the threats heard on the tape on Sunday and by Monday over a hundred protesters showed up outside of the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office calling for the resignation of Sheriff Kevin Clardy.
The recording was made by a reporter at the McCurtain Gazette-News “in which those involved could be heard discussing plans to murder kill two Gazette reporters, Chris and Bruce Willingham, after a commission meeting on March 6,” according to local media.
Willingham told local media he left his recording device at the meeting to try and prove that officials were holding meetings in secret. “He ended up getting much more than he bargained for,” reported Oklahoma’s News9.
On the tape, the officials can be heard discussing “plans to beat, kill and bury two newspaper reporters.”
The discussion between the sheriff, his investigator Alicia Manning, Commissioners Mark Jennings and Robert Beck, commissioners’ secretary Heather Carter and jail administrator Larry Hendrix, begins with jokes about a recent fire that killed a local woman:
“So we get her in the body bag and Kyler goes, ‘You do know what we gotta do now, right?’ Faith goes, ‘No, what?’ He goes, ‘You gotta pre-heat the oven 350 degrees, leave her in there for 15 minutes,’” Clardy said. “And she went [vomit sounds, laughter]. Bless her heart. It was … and then the medical examiner asked her, said, ‘Hey we’re fixing to go eat.’ And he looked her in the face and said, ‘You wanna go with me and go eat barbecue?’”
Other parts of the three-hour-long audio recording includes a loathsome discussion of beating and hanging Black people:
“I’m gonna tell you something,” Jennings says. “If it was back in the day, when … Alan Marshton would take a damn Black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for f—— sheriff.”
Clardy then laments, “It’s not like that no more.”“I know,” Jennings responds. “Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.”
The discussion eventually turns to killing the journalists.
The reporters “are insignificant in my life,” says Manning. Clardy replies, “What goes around goes around.”
“I know where two big deep holes are here if you ever need them,” Jennings responded. Sheriff Clardy replies, “I’ve got an excavator.”
“Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings shoots back.
“I’ve known two or three hit men, they’re very quiet guys, yeah, who would cut no fucking mercy, yeah, in Louisiana, cause it’s all mafia around here,” Jennings adds.
Willingham told local media he was terrified after listening to the tape and added, “I can see where they might try to spin that as being a joke that part, but then Alecia comes back later on and starts talking about my daughter-in-law and she starts getting worried about who would get the blame. I don’t see how you spin that as a joke.”
