Stilwell Resident Sentenced To 24 Years For Murder And Federal Firearms Offense

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Jerry Lee Matlock, Jr., age 41, of Stilwell, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 168 months in prison for one count of Second Degree Murder in Indian Country, and 120 months in prison for one count of Use, Carry, Brandish and Discharge of a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence.  The sentences are set to be served consecutively for a total of 288 months in prison.

The charges arose from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Adair County Sheriff’s Office, and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

On February 12, 2024, Matlock pleaded guilty to the charges.  According to investigators, on the evening of September 14, 2021, Matlock intentionally fired his rifle at an individual from inside a pickup truck, then drove from the scene of the crime.  Adair County deputies responding to a shooting discovered a Stilwell resident deceased from a gunshot wound to the chest.  Law enforcement apprehended Matlock less than a mile away, parked in his pickup truck, with a Remington 700 bolt action rifle and ammunition.  The crimes occurred in Adair County, within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable John C. Coughenour, Senior U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, sitting by assignment, presided over the hearing in Muskogee, Oklahoma.  Matlock will remain in the 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.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Gross represented the United States.