Suspect says he killed parents after argument over Satanism
EDMOND — A 19-year-old man “believed he did the right thing” in fatally shooting his parents on Monday at their home, police said. In an interview with detectives, Michael Elijah “Eli” Walker admitted to killing his parents after an argument that began when he asked them about Satanism, according to a police affidavit. Isaiah Walker, 17, said his brother told him that he shot their parents “because they were sending him messages telepathically and they were Satan worshipers,” according to police. Eli Walker is being held in the Oklahoma County jail without bail. Police received a 911 call from Isaiah Walker about 2:30 a.m. Monday. Officers arrived at the home at 2601 N Bryant Ave. and found Michael Logan Walker, 50, and Rachael May Walker, 44, dead from gunshot wounds. Isaiah Walker said his brother said everything was OK, and he would “bury the bodies,” according to the affidavit. Isaiah Walker also said his brother often carried a Glock 17 pistol around the house because he is paranoid. The suspect's sister, Ashten Belle West, wrote in a Facebook post Monday that her brother suffers from schizophrenia and “was not and has not been in the right state of mind for a few years now.” “Mental illness is real,”
she wrote in the post. “I will ALWAYS love him no matter what. He is a victim as well.” Walker told detectives he “would react the same way if he had to do it over again,” according to the affidavit. He said in the police interview that neither of his parents harmed him at all. On Facebook, Rachael Walker posted about being a Christian and attending worship service at Life.Church Edmond. Michael Walker worked at Southwestern Christian University in south Oklahoma City. Walker told police he began arguing with his parents in his bedroom, where the pistol was sitting beside him on the bed. He said his father grabbed him on the bed and said, “Give me the gun.” Walker said he shot his father “anywhere I could hit him,” and his mother ran out of the bedroom, according to the affidavit. He followed her and shot her in the back near an entryway where he believed she was trying to escape outside the house. He told detectives he returned to his bedroom to reload his pistol and went back to shoot his mother again because he believed she was still alive, according to the affidavit. Walker held a pillow over his mother and shot through it to muffle the sound, he said. Police recovered 19 spent shell casings in the house, indicating Walker reloaded the 17-round magazine in the pistol. In similar Oklahoma cases, suspects accused of killing a parent have been acquitted on insanity grounds. Last year, Christian Erin Costello was sent to a state mental hospital in Vinita after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the fatal stabbing of his father, Mark Costello, the state labor commissioner. In Walker's case, a detective wrote in the affidavit that the suspect showed forethought and deliberate action by shooting his mother while she was escaping, reloading his weapon and using a pillow.
Awoke to screaming, gunfire
Isaiah Walker told police he woke up to the sound of screaming and gunfire, according to the affidavit. He saw his mother in the hallway after he opened his bedroom door, and she yelled for him to call 911. After he called police dispatch, he went to the kitchen to find a piece of mail because he couldn't remember his home address, according to a recording of his 911 call. “There's a bunch of gunfire in my house, and I believe it was my brother,” Isaiah Walker said in the call. He said in a police interview that his brother told him to hang up the phone, so he did. The suspect can be heard in the background of his brother's 911 call saying, “Hang up the phone. Hang up the phone right now.” Edmond police have no previous record of criminal activity by Eli Walker. Oklahoma City police issued him a citation Aug. 8, 2017, for possession of marijuana. He told an Oklahoma City police officer a marijuana cigarette was his after the officer saw it through the window of a truck, according to a police report. Rachael Walker was a former surgical technologist at St. Anthony Hospital in Shawnee. Michael Walker was a drum performer and a percussion instructor at Southwestern Christian University. They had been married since 1999.