‘The justice we deserve’
Victim’s father praises conviction of former Tulsa officer
TULSA — The father of a Tulsa teenager shot to death by Shannon Kepler in 2014 said late Wednesday that he is glad to receive some form of closure from the jury who determined the former Tulsa police officer was guilty of firstdegree manslaughter.
Kepler, 57, will be sentenced Nov. 20 in District Judge Sharon Holmes’ courtroom over his role in the killing of 19-year-old Jeremey Lake.
Jurors in the trial, which was Kepler’s fourth in less than a year, deliberated for about six hours before recommending he spend 15 years in prison and pay a $10,000 fine for the lesser included offense of manslaughter committed in the heat of passion.
Kepler faced a firstdegree murder charge in all four trials, but Holmes declared mistrials in the previous three proceedings due to hung juries. The jury in Kepler’s July trial was also allowed to consider the same manslaughter theory as a lesser-included charge.
Kepler, who was out of custody on bond, was booked at the Tulsa jail just after midnight and is housed in a cell in the medical unit.
“I just appreciate what everybody’s done for us, and finally my son can have his justice that he deserves and we can all as a family get the justice we deserve,” Carl Morse, Lake’s father, told reporters. “The jury did their job, and that’s all I can ask for.”
Lake had just entered into a romantic relationship with Kepler’s estranged daughter, Lisa, which became public on their Facebook profiles Aug. 5, 2014, the day he died. Lisa Kepler, then 18, briefly moved in with Lake and his family after Lake met her at a nearby homeless shelter, which was where the Kepler family dropped her off amid family turmoil at their home.
Morse, who has attended all four trials, said it was “a long journey” to get to a guilty verdict and was “really happy” the jury paid attention to the facts. He said the family has received “partial closure,” adding it was difficult for Lake’s loved ones to stay strong amid the three mistrials.
“I’m very happy (with) what (District Attorney) Steve (Kunzweiler) did,” he said. He and Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gray “stood there and worked for us. They did their best. No matter what the outcome would have been, I’d still appreciate what they did for us.”
Kunzweiler and Gray accused Shannon Kepler of taking it too far when he decided to drive to Lake’s home in a dark SUV and initiate a confrontation while armed with his old Tulsa Police Department service revolver. Kepler obtained Lake’s address and other identifying information through the use of Tulsa Police Department investigative tools, which he conceded was a policy violation.
“I have some compassion and feelings for the Kepler family. I don’t think their family ever envisioned that a 25-year veteran of the Tulsa Police Department would go off the rails like Mr. Kepler did on this particular evening,” Kunzweiler said. “He certainly had a background that would reflect that for the majority of his career, he was an honorable police officer.
“But in the end it was his choice, all his actions, to head out to that location in those hours the night of Aug. 5, 2014. That forever changed the trajectory of his life, the trajectory of his family’s life and certainly that of Mr. Lake’s life.”
Lead defense attorney Richard O’Carroll argued Kepler shot Lake in selfdefense after seeing Lake carrying a gun, despite at least seven witnesses to either the shooting or its immediate aftermath asserting Lake had no firearm on or near him.
Kepler told the jury Wednesday morning, “It was me or him” and said he felt he had no choice but to shoot Lake because he saw Lake point a gun. But Gray, during his closing argument, said repeatedly that testimony about the “phantom gun” Lake supposedly had was not corroborated by any testimony or evidence and only came from the person facing the possibility of life imprisonment.
“I’d like to say I personally have never met a man as brave as Shannon. Whatever may have happened out there on that street, he faced four juries,” O’Carroll said Wednesday night after the verdict. “We tried to stop that process, but it was a straight numbers game. If the state takes enough shots at you, they’re gonna hit you.”
O’Carroll said he believed his client wasn’t subjected to fairness as the case proceeded, as he thought Holmes “put her thumb on the scale” in various ways to slant it in the state’s favor.
“Nobody could argue manslaughter with a straight face,” he said, adding that he objected to the inclusion of jury instructions about the charge. “This was about politics, and this was highprofile.”
Kunzweiler denied having political motivations throughout his prosecution of Kepler in each of the four trials, saying he wanted to prosecute someone who perpetrated a homicide until a jury reached a conclusion. He pointed to testimony that showed Kepler drove away from the scene after he shot Lake without calling 911 and said Kepler left his daughter — whom he has said he wanted to rescue from a potentially dangerous person — without bothering to check on her safety afterward.
“Mr. Kepler ran from the incident while two couples ran down there to render aid to someone they hardly knew,” Kunzweiler said of Lake’s neighbors’ attempts to save his life. “He was never looking for his daughter. He was looking for the guy who was dating his daughter.”
O’Carroll said he intends to appeal the conviction. He has a pending appeal for two related misdemeanor convictions Kepler received in November for reckless conduct with a firearm, for which Holmes imposed a one-year jail sentence.
Kepler had been charged with shooting with intent to kill over claims he also fired at Lisa Kepler and Lake’s younger brother, Michael Hamilton, but the jury in the November trial received instructions on the misdemeanor offense they ultimately chose.