David Cannon Oates, Deputy Warden, OSP
Oklahoma Department of Corrections
D. C. “Pat” Oates, 44, was one of seven people killed during a prison escape about 4:20 P.M. on Monday, January 19, 1914, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary (OSP) in McAlester. Three escaping convicts, Tom Lane, Chiney Reed and Charles Kuntz, became involved in a gun battle with Deputy Warden Oates near his office just as Bertillon officer Herman H. Drover was coming out of his office and was killed by gunfire from convict Tom Lane. Oates was then shot and killed by the convicts. Day Sergeant F. C. Godfrey and attorney John R. Thomas were also shot and killed during the escape. All three convicts were shot and killed just after they left the prison walls.
Oates had served three years as a Deputy Sheriff and four years as Sheriff in Woods County before being appointed as Deputy Warden of the State Penitentiary in 1909. Oates was survived by his wife Beulah and two children Marjorie and William.
Henry W. Oats – Federal Prohibition Agent
The afternoon of Thursday, February 5, 1925, Oats and two other prohibition agents noticed a man and two women washing a car in Salt Creek between DeNoya and Fairfax in Osage County. The officers walked down to the creek and questioned the trio and determined that the car was stolen. Agent Oats started to drive the car up out of the creek with the man with him in the front seat. The officers had not searched the man. As the car reached the road the man tried to push Oats out of the car but he resisted so the man pulled a .45, shot Oats in the stomach then fled on foot. Oats fired several shots at the man hitting him once in the right arm. Agent Oats died the next day of his wound.
The man who shot him was Earl Jarrett, an escaped convict from McAlester serving 25 years for bank robbery. Jarrett was arrested a couple weeks later, tried and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Agent Oats.
Herman Odom, Deputy Sheriff
McIntosh County Sheriff's Office
Near dusk on March 27, 1909, Marshal Baum and Deputy Odom were two of six officers who had gone to arrest a man for larceny. As the officers approached the house shots were fired as several men ran from the house. Marshal Baum was the first officer to be shot down and as Odom went to his aid he also was shot and killed.
Richard Dean Oldaker,
Trooper
Oklahoma Highway
Patrol
Trooper Oldaker, 33, had been with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP) for nine
years, the last two years as a pilot in the Aircraft Division. He had previously
served with the Norman Police Department
On the afternoon of
Monday, July 3, 1978, Trooper Oldaker was piloting a Cessna 182 single engine
aircraft with OHP Trooper Rondal Alexander and U S Army Military Police Officer
Ronald D. Russell on board as observers. The plane was being used as a traffic
spotter aircraft for holiday traffic. Sometime between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. that
day, the aircraft crashed about three miles west of the Salt Fork River in
Harman County, near the Texas border, killing all three officers.
Richard Edgar Oliver, Chief of Police
Canute Police Department
On Monday, July 4, 1983, Chief Richard Oliver and Christopher Spitzer, a friend who had applied to be a reserve officer, were patrolling the streets of Canute. Witnessing a motorist run a stop sign, the officers started a pursuit. James Jennings, 23, was driving a pickup truck southbound. About three miles south of Canute, Jennings turned his truck around and headed northbound back toward the officers. Just as the vehicles met at the top of the hill, Jennings was left of center and hit the chief’s patrol car head on. Chief Oliver and Christopher Spitzer were both dead at the scene. Chief Oliver was survived by a nine year old daughter, Rae Ann. Oliver had just been appointed Chief in June.
Jennings was transported to the Bone and Joint Hospital in Oklahoma City with two fractures to the right leg and facial lacerations.
Kenny Lee Osborn, Trooper
Oklahoma Highway Patrol
At about 4 a.m. on the morning of Thursday, July 13, 1978, Trooper Kenny Osborn pulled over to the side of the Turner Turnpike about seven miles west of Sapulpa to check an abandoned station wagon. This area of the turnpike was under construction because part of the roadway had been sinking. Traffic had been narrowed to a single lane and the abandoned station wagon was presenting a possible traffic hazard. While the trooper was standing beside the station wagon, a semi-trailer truck loaded with 25 tons of reinforced steel entered the construction area at an excessive rate of speed. The truck sideswiped the station wagon and knocked the trooper 23 feet. The trooper died at the scene from his injuries and the truck driver, Gerald Crawford, 36, was charged with negligent homicide.
Osborn was the sixth OHP trooper to be killed in the line of duty in the previous seven weeks.
Howard D. Oursler, Federal Prohibition Agent
H.D. Oursler was a special agent assigned to the Muskogee office. He had gone to Stilwell and made purchases of liquor from several sources, one of them Ed Dudley. On Wednesday, October 12, 1932, Oursler and a driver, Elmer Philpott, went back to Stilwell to make arrests when they saw Dudley standing on a street corner. Oliver approached Dudley announcing he was a federal agent and that he was arresting him. Dudley protested at which time the officer grabbed him and attempted to subdue him. During the fight which followed Dudley was able to get Oursler’s gun and fire into the agent’s abdomen, then turned the gun on Philpott hitting him in the leg. Dudley then walked away.
Both Oursler and Philpott were transported to a local hospital but the efforts of the doctor were in vain and Oursler died four hours after being shot.
A huge posse was formed and a search of the hills gave no results. Four days after the shooting, on Saturday Dudley called the sheriff’s office to surrender. He was arraigned on first degree murder charges in the killing of Special Agent H.D. Oursler.
Hugh A. Owen, Deputy Sheriff
Nowata County Sheriffs Office
On the afternoon of Wednesday, October 12, 1938, Sheriff Hugh Owen, Deputy Bill Lupfer and Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Roy Kannaday were searching for two men who had committed an armed robbery near Nowata the previous night. After identifying two suspects, they traced the men to a house ten miles east of Nowata. When Sheriff Owen ordered the men to come outside and surrender, they refused. He then forced the door open and was shot in the chest with a shotgun as he entered the house. Sheriff Owen died on the way to the hospital and the suspects escaped.
Alvie Chester Wright, 25, was arrested near Poplar Bluff by Missouri Highway Patrol troopers on October 15 and Leslie R. “Whitey” Cameron, 24, was captured near the Arkansas border four days later. Both suspects were taken to the State Prison in McAlester to prevent a lynching and they were tried in Bartlesville the following January. Both men alleged that they were drunk at the time of the shooting and Wright, the one suspected of having fired the fatal shot, also said he was under the influence of morphine. Both men were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mrs. Lena Owen was appointed Sheriff of Nowata County to serve the remainder of her deceased husband’s term.
Jacob G. Owens, Deputy U S Marshal
U. S. Marshals
Deputy Owens was one of 11 people killed and as many as 19 wounded on April 15, 1872, at a schoolhouse east of Tahlequah, near the modern town of Christie in Adair County in the Going Snake District of the Cherokee Nation. Zeke Proctor was being tried by the Cherokee Nation at the schoolhouse for accidentally killing a widow named Polly Beck Hildebrand. The relatives of Polly convinced the federal court at Fort Smith to intervene in the case. The U S Commissioner issued an arrest warrant for Proctor on a charge of assault with intent to kill to Deputy U S Marshals Jacob G Owens and Joseph S Peavey. The Deputies led a posse including friends and relatives of Polly to the schoolhouse. As the federal posse entered the schoolhouse a massive gun battle erupted. Possemen Black Sut Beck, Sam Beck, William Hicks, George Selridge, James Ward and Riley Woods were killed that day. Deputy Owens and Posseman William Beck died the next day from their wounds.
Defford T. Oyebi Jr., Officer
Otoe-Missouria Tribal Police
At 9:35 P.M. on Sunday, December 20, 1998, Officer “D.J.” Oyebi, 23, was responding to a report of an overturned vehicle when his south bound patrol unit skidded out of control on icy US 177 about 2.3 miles north of State Highway 15 West near the Otoe Indian Agency in Noble County. Officer Oyebi’s patrol car was struck in the passenger side by a north bound vehicle. Officer Oyebi and a passenger in the other car were pinned in their cars for 45 minutes and were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the other car was injured but survived.