Oklahoma victims’ families ask why sex offender was free

Questions mounted Thursday about why an Oklahoma sex offender who authorities say shot to death his wife, her three children and their two friends and then killed himself was freed from prison despite facing new sex charges in a separate case.

Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice said each victim had been shot in the head one to three times with a 9 mm pistol when they were found Monday near a creek.

The bodies apparently had been moved there from where they were originally killed, the scene “staged” before Jesse McFadden, a 39-year-old convicted sex offender, killed himself, Prentice said Wednesday. The bodies were discovered near McFadden’s home in Henryetta, a town of about 6,000 about 90 miles east of Oklahoma City.

The gruesome discovery came Monday, the very day that McFadden was to stand trial on charges that he solicited nude images from a teen while he was in prison for rape. McFadden was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2003 for first-degree rape. He was freed in 2020, three years early, in part for good behavior.

He faced new charges while still in prison. accused of using a contraband cellphone in 2016 to trade nude photos with a 16-year-old girl. Court records show McFadden was charged with the new crimes in 2017 after a relative of the victim alerted authorities. He was rearrested a month after he was released in October 2020 and released on $25,000 bond.

Lee Berlin, a Tulsa-based defense attorney, told The Associated Press 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 pending 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.

Meanwhile, McFadden had vowed not to return to prison in a series of ominous messages with the teenager whom he had allegedly been texting while behind bars. According to screen grabs of the messages, forwarded to KOKI in Tulsa, McFadden said his “great life” was crumbling and blamed the teenager for the latest set of charges against him that could put him back in prison for decades.