OKC homicides continued at steady pace in 2016
Christy Pedigo called her oldest son, Tanner, early in the morning to wish him a happy birthday.
Tanner didn’t pick up, so his mom left a message.
“You’re going to make me sing,” she teased. “You didn’t answer the phone. I guess you’re going to have to listen to my song.”
She told Tanner she loved him and asked him to call her back.
About 2 ½ hours later, Christy Pedigo’s cellphone rang. When she answered, an Oklahoma City police detective informed her that her son was dead.
Steven Tanner Pedigo died shortly before 4:30 a.m. Sept. 14, shot in the parking lot of a Super 8 motel in northwest Oklahoma City. Instead of celebrating his 31st birthday, his family wound up planning his funeral. He numbered 57 among the 78 people
killed in homicides last year in Oklahoma City.
Homicide numbers can fluctuate widely from year to year, but 2016 followed recent statistical form. From 2011 to 2015, Oklahoma City averaged 77.2 per year.
Police are still gathering and analyzing information about the 2016 homicides, so some datamight change, said Capt. Paco Balderrama, a police spokesman.
In 62 of last year’s killings, the perpetrator used a firearm, according to police. The suspect and the victim knew each other in 57 of the killings. Eighteen of the homicides were drug-involved. Three were murder-suicides.
Sixty-two of the 2016 homicide victims were male and 16 were female.
Half of the victims — 39 — were black. About 14 percent of Oklahoma City’s population is black.
Twenty of the victims were white, 16 were Hispanic, and two were Asian. One of the victims wasNative American.
Fourteen of the 2016 homicides were a result of a robbery. Twelve were gang-related, a decrease from the previous year. Eleven of the homicides originated with an argument. Ten were domestic disputes, which is fewer than usual, Balderrama said. Five were child abuse cases, five others were cases of self-defense and four were officer-involved shootings. The remaining cases had another motive or an unknown motive, based on preliminary information from police.
Clearing cases
Oklahoma City police routinely report an annual homicide clearance rate between 65 percent and 78 percent, far exceeding the national average for similar-sized cities.
Meanwhile, prosecutors won convictions in 218 of the 235 Oklahoma City homicide cases taken to trial between 2008 and June 30, 2015, an almost 93 percent rate. But a recent analysis by
The Oklahoman found that in nearly one of every two potentially prosecutable homicides in Oklahoma City during that period no one ever went to jail for the crime.
Prosecutable homicides exclude those cases that make it unlikely anyone would ever be tried for a crime, including cases in which police officers justifiably killed a suspect, murder-suicides and justifiable homicides.
In some cases, police never arrested a suspect. In some, police arrested a suspect but prosecutors either never filed charges or filed charges but later had them dismissed, citing a lack of evidence. In other cases, prosecutors took the case to trial, but jurors acquitted the suspect.
Of the 71 potentially prosecutable homicides in 2016, police arrested a suspect or suspects in 46 of the cases. Police have yet to make an arrest in 21. In three cases, police identified a suspect but the district attorney declined to file charges. In another case, an arrest warrant has been issued for two suspects.
So far, police have identified 92 suspects in the 2016 homicides, with some cases having more than one. Twenty-seven of those suspects were between the ages of 18 and 22.
Many of the 2016 cases are still under investigation or winding their way through the court system, making it impossible to determine a conviction rate at this time.
Victims young and old
Among the highest-profile homicides of the year was the Nov. 15 sniperstyle ambush of an airport worker that shut down Will Rogers World Airport for several hours.
Michael Winchester, a 29-year employee of Southwest Airlines, was walking to his car in an employee parking lot after work when Lloyd Dean Buie, a former Southwest employee, shot him from a parking garage, police reported.
Buie, 45, then took his own life. Police found Buie several hours later in a pickup on the second floor of the airport parking garage.
Police later determined that Buie had parked his pickup several days before and returned to the airport by bus or cab several times before shooting Winchester, 52, of Washington.
Another 2016 homicide victim, Raul Marquez Olivarj, died as a result of injuries he suffered the previous year. On April 10, 2015, an unknown assailant shot Olivarj as he was picking up cans near SW 31 and Virginia. The bullet severed Olivarj’s spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed below the neck. Olivarj died from his injuries in February at a nursing home, police reported.
No one has been arrested in his death.
The oldest homicide victim was 82-year-old Ikuko George. Officers who were conducting a welfare check on March 7 found George dead inside her home at 3117 SE 54. No one has been arrested in her death.
The youngest homicide victim was 18-day-old Prince Williams, who died Aug. 23.
On Dec. 16, police arrested Ron Turner, 29, on warrants issued from a child-rape case pending in Midwest City. While investigators were interviewing Turner, they developed probable cause to arrest him on a murder complaint in Prince’s death, according to police.
Ten of the homicide victims were under the age of 18, including Ra’Shya Long, the first homicide victim to die in 2016.
Long, 17, a junior at Centennial High School, was shot to death shortly before 1 a.m. on Jan. 1 after a fight broke out at a party she was attending in the 3900 block of N Pennsylvania Avenue. Kaylin Mixon, 20, is accused of firing into the crowd, killing Long.
Prosecutors charged Mixon, who was identified as a Blood gang member, with murder in Long’s death, according to court records.
Police arrested Elijah Donyal Wilson, of Oklahoma City, after detectives were notified that he had been making threats on social media to retaliate against any witnesses to the homicide of Long.
Prosecutors in January 2016 charged Wilson, 21, with use of a computer for the purpose of violating state statutes and threatening to perform an act of violence.
August proved the deadliest month with 13 homicides.
‘It’s not the same anymore’
Before her death, Long spent the afternoon with her friends, shopping at the mall and getting their nails done. That night, Long video chatted with her mom, LaTorrie Stafford, as they tended to do often.
Waiting for a call back from her daughter, Stafford instead got a call from her daughter’s friend.
“It’s really not easy to put into words,” Stafford said recently, with tears spilling down her cheeks. “When you lose your child, it’s like your heart don’t beat the same. … It’s hard to even try to be the same mother, because the person who made me a mother is not here.”
Long loved to dance. She also served as manager of the girls’ basketball team at her high school and would have been graduating this year.
“She did a lot within her 17 years,” Stafford said. “She inspired a lot of people. … For her to be so young, she was so wise.”
Surrounded by some of Long’s friends on Wednesday afternoon, her younger sister TaShyla shared stories about her older sister’s goofy personality and the hole her death has left in the lives of those who knew and loved her. The girls described Ra’Shya as “the glue” of their group of friends.
One year later, her friends and family still are struggling to cope with what happened. TaShyla, 16, said her sister’s death forced her to grow up fast.
“It’s different not having a sister, somebody you grew up with from birth,” she said. “I never had to be without her, so I had to learn how to do that and I’m still not completely sure.”
“It’s not the same anymore,” one of her friends chimed in.
Ra’Shya had a lot of younger siblings and cousins who looked up to her, TaShyla said.
“Without her, a lot of us are empty,” she said.
‘An unbelievable sadness’
Authorities identified three 19-year-old suspects in the death of Steven Tanner Pedigo, who friends and family knew as Tanner.
Prosecutors in October charged Essence Omunique Roberts, Christian Frels, and Erik Scott Kopepassah, all of Oklahoma City, with first-degree murder in Oklahoma County District Court.
A witness told police Pedigo was supposed to be meeting with people he met on a dating site to buy drugs, according to court records. Roberts and Frels were identified as suspects through the dating site, and Kopepassah was connected to the homicide through his vehicle and phone records, according to police.
Christy Pedigo doesn’t know all of the details surrounding her son’s death. There are some unknowns that she’s not sure she’ll ever have answers to.
As she spoke about Tanner and his death, she clutched a handkerchief. At times, she twisted it around her finger or used it to wipe away tears. Other times, she laughed as she recalled funny stories about her son’s fashion sense.
She cries every day but, as a mom, she has assumed the burden of crying when she is alone so she can be a source of strength for her family.
“That’s hard, to have to pretend that I’m OK,” she said. “Because I’m not, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be OK again. I mean, I know I will. … I just don’t know when.”
She doesn’t like seeing her reflection in the mirror. The image that looks back at her is not the same she saw four months ago.
“I see just an unbelievable sadness that my face has never possessed before,” she said. “It’s just not who I am, and I don’t like the reflection that stares back at me with the pain.”
She’s a different person now. She knows she will spend every day of the rest of her life missing Tanner.
Christy Pedigo said her son had a magnetic personality and never met a stranger. She estimated close to 300 people attended his funeral service.
“He was a loyal, diehard-to-the-end friend,” she said. “If you talk to any of his friends, they would tell you he’s the kind of friend you want to have in your corner because he was there for you.”
Tanner had two younger brothers, ages 19 and 20, whose lives have also been forever changed. He loved fiercely and would do anything for others, his mom said, but sometimes he fell into what she described as “a trap of wildness.”
Before he died, Tanner was working selling windows, roofing and siding for a local home remodeling company. His mom said he had a “silver tongue.” His family used to kid that he could sell anything to anybody “because he was just so smooth,” Christy Pedigo said.
Tanner always dressed impeccably and “was all about being the pretty boy,” his mom said. He had his own fashion sense and his own idea of what looked sharp, she said.
Tanner had a 2-yearold son with his girlfriend, who is expecting their second child, a girl, later this month. He also is the father of a 10-year-old son from a previous relationship, but he wasn’t actively involved in the boy’s life.
Christy Pedigo, who is involved in both boys’ lives, said they are the best of Tanner.
“All of his redeeming qualities and all of his goodness (is) wrapped up in those little babies, so I’m very grateful to have that legacy,” she said.