Ada Resident Sentenced For Second Degree Murder

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Stephen Tanner Vineyard, age 31, of Ada, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 200 months in prison for second degree murder.

The charges arose from investigations by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Ardmore Police Department, the Carter County District Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On May 10, 2022, Vineyard pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting a Murder in Indian Country – Second Degree.  According to investigators, a 59-year-old Ardmore resident sustained multiple shotgun wounds in the early morning hours of June 30, 2014, and was left to die on her front porch.  Years later, witnesses came forward and recounted statements Vineyard made at the time of the murder admitting his involvement.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma prosecuted this case because Vineyard is a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe and the crimes occurred in Carter County, within the boundaries of the Chickasaw Nation Reservation and the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable David C. Joseph, U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, sitting by designation, presided over the hearings in Muskogee.  Vineyard will remain in custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.