Charles Troy Coleman (March 15, 1947 – September 10, 1990)[2] was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was executed in 1990 by the state of Oklahoma.
[3] He was convicted in 1979 of the murder of John Seward, who, along with his wife, was killed by a shotgun blast in rural Muskogee County, when they interrupted a robbery at a relative's house.
His criminal career began as early as age 11 when he stabbed a mule while gigging frogs with his brother.
At age 15, he committed a burglary, and one month later, he escaped from a juvenile court after pulling a gun on an officer.
Coleman continued to commit crimes and built up a lengthy rap sheet of offenses in multiple states.
He passed a lie detector test, and Shirley Stidham provided Charles Coleman with an alibi, claiming he had been with her when her father had been murdered.
However, according to media accounts, several months after the murder, Shirley Stidham had told police that her father had slapped her in front of Coleman.
Attorneys who prosecuted him claim his charisma and charm helped him gain an acquittal, but they remained convinced he was guilty of the murder.
Armed with a .28 gauge shotgun, Coleman took the Seward's hostage and led them into the home's basement at gunpoint.
Several items from the house were also determined to be missing, including watches, wallets, and packets of frozen meat.
Because of the overwhelming amount of evidence against him, Coleman was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of John and Roxie Seward.
[5][7][8] On April 23, 1979, while awaiting trial for the murder of the Sewards, Coleman escaped from the Muskogee County jail through its tarpaper roof.
An altercation followed, and Coleman slit Dotson's throat before stealing his revolver and forcing him into the backseat of his patrol car.
Two days later, Coleman carjacked Russell E. Lewis Jr. in Tulsa, and fatally shot him in the head with the revolver he had stolen from Dotson.
[5][9] On April 28, Coleman was pulled over in Tucson, Arizona by Pima County deputy Terry Parish for driving erratically.
Mike Turpen, a Muskogee County District Attorney, then began extradition proceedings to bring Coleman back to Oklahoma to face trial for the murder of the Seward's.
[19] Turpen, who prosecuted Coleman, held evidence against him in the murder of Roxie Seward in reserve in case another trial was ever needed.
However, in 1983, the sentence was overturned, following the discovery that a potential juror had been excluded from the trial after expressing doubts about the death penalty.
In the month prior to his scheduled execution, his attorney asked the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board to recommend his sentence be commuted to life in prison.
[30] In May 1988, the body of a woman was found in the Grand Neosho River beneath Fort Gibson Dam in Cherokee County, Oklahoma.
[32] Coleman is mentioned in the 2006 true crime nonfiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham.
The book tells the story of Ron Williamson, who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1988 in Oklahoma for rape and murder, who was later released when DNA evidence proved his innocence.
According to the book, Williamson was not fond of Coleman, and many prisoners on death row at Oklahoma State Penitentiary were not too bothered about his execution, with some even celebrating the news.