Fort Gibson Resident Sentenced For Second Degree Murder In Indian Country

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that David Allen Lee, age 44, of Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 384 months in prison for one count of Second Degree Murder in Indian Country, to be followed by 5 years of Supervised Release.

The charge arose from an investigation by the Tahlequah Police Department, the Cherokee Nation Marshal Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On June 5, 2025, Lee was found guilty of the charge by a federal jury at trial.  According to investigators, on July 2, 2024, Lee stabbed a Tahlequah resident in the chest with a knife at the victim’s residence.  Lee waited to call 911 for several hours after the victim’s death and barricaded himself inside the residence before finally surrendering to police.  The crime occurred in Cherokee County, within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable Ronald A. White, Chief U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing.  Lee will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kevin Gross and Patrick M. Flanigan represented the United States.