Oklahoma
How a Small Town Murder in Oklahoma Sparked a Supreme Court Battle Over Tribal Sovereignty
![How a Small Town Murder in Oklahoma Sparked a Supreme Court Battle Over Tribal Sovereignty How a Small Town Murder in Oklahoma Sparked a Supreme Court Battle Over Tribal Sovereignty](https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/tribal-tunrpike.jpg)
The Indian Nation turnpike is a four-lane highway cutting north to south through the bottom right corner of Oklahoma. On a cold day in November, I’m on the highway headed south. Just after Henryetta, the exit dumps me onto a shiny two-lane blacktop. After a mile, between the trees and the fence posts, I see a narrow opening on the left. Having pieced together the location from press coverage, court records, and word of mouth, I think I know where I’m going. The legal name for the road is N 3980, but everyone calls it Vernon Road, after the small town it leads to. The stereotype of Oklahoma, from musicals or Westerns or just plain ignorance, is of a land that is flat and dry. But that’s true only for the western part of the state. The fingertips of the Ozarks stretch into eastern Oklahoma, and in the spring and summer months the landscape—dotted with hills, rivers, and creeks—turns verdant. People call it Green Country.
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It’s fall, and the sides of Vernon Road are deep and muddy, so I drive down the middle. I’m going parallel to the interstate now—the hum of the highway still audible—but on this road there is no traffic. After two big curves and a hill, the road stretches out flat and straight in front of me. The gravel is the color of faded rust, a burnt orange teetering on beige. I pass a Muscogee cemetery on the left, then a little yellow house, before reaching a spot on the road between the cow pastures and the trees that looks like any other spot except for one thing: a large, metal, white cross. The cross stands with a lean in the ditch. Garden stones have been placed in a circle around the base. The white paint is chipping and rust curls around the edges, but in faded letters I can still read the name George Jacobs.
George Jacobs memorial
It was a few days after the murder, in the summer of 1999, when the Jacobs family came to his house. Over twenty years later when we speak, Anderson Fields Jr. can’t remember exactly who it was, maybe a sister and a nephew. Probably through small-town talk, Anderson figures, the Jacobs family heard he was the one who found George. They wanted to put up a cross where their loved one had died, and they wanted Anderson to show them the place. And so he took them. At the time, it was an otherwise nondescript section of dirt road, except for one undeniable mark: blood. There had been so much of it, it stayed for months. “Even after it rained, you could still see that spot,” he told me. “After a while, it started to look like an oil stain.”
Many of the most important legal decisions about tribal land and sovereignty come from surprising places.
The cross commemorates George Jacobs’s life. But it also marks the exact location of his murder—a fact that would become crucial evidence in the appeal of his killer. That appeal would eventually go all the way to the Supreme Court. Under US law, tribes occupy a precarious legal status which often makes it difficult for them to bring cases on their own behalf. As a result, many of the most important legal decisions about tribal land and sovereignty come from surprising places. Like this one, which started in 1999 as a small-town murder.
*
August 28, 1999, was Patrick Murphy’s last day as a free man.
It was a Saturday—his day off. He didn’t have big plans, just helping his cousin move some furniture. Patrick woke up, took a shower, and pulled a beer out of the chilled six-pack waiting in his cooler. He drank it—all six—while he waited for his cousin to show up. Except for a small sliver of road, the view from Patrick’s front porch was trees.
That summer, Patrick was working in Henryetta as a line lead at a factory that built filters for the military. He was thirty years old and had three children from a previous marriage who were supposed to be staying with him for the weekend, but were at his mom’s place a few hundred yards down the hill. His girlfriend was staying there too; they had been fighting.
Patrick’s trailer, as well as his mom’s house, sat on the family’s land, a spot relatives still call the “home place.” “It was all cousins [that] stayed down there,” one aunt told me. Even the generations that came and went before Patrick were buried in the yard. Tucked into a curve of the North Canadian River, people call the small community the Bottoms; some call it the Hole. The name you might find on a map—if it’s marked at all—is Ryal.
Ryal is a Muscogee (or “Creek” in English) community. The last treaty Muscogee Nation signed with the US government, in 1866, reserved over three million acres for the tribe—spanning eleven counties in Oklahoma. Some parts are urban, containing the city of Tulsa and its surrounding suburbs. But the southern half of Muscogee Nation’s treaty territory, including Ryal, is rural. In these isolated communities lies the heartbeat of Muscogee culture. It’s where elders still speak the language, where Creek Methodist and Baptist churches stand, and where, on Saturday nights, people still dance at Muscogee ceremonial grounds.
Ryal was small enough that the Murphy kids could walk everywhere: between relatives’ houses, to the Ryal school, and to the local Creek Baptist church, Hickory Ground #1. When the grown folks were visiting, children were not allowed to listen or interrupt, so they played outside. The cousins spent those days cutting through the woods to the ball field, the basketball court, or another relative’s house. They built makeshift go-karts and raced them down the big hill that led to the river bottom. Only when called did they return home.
Patrick was raised by his mother, a full-blood Muscogee woman. His father, a Black man, hadn’t been around much. At Ryal School, Patrick was a star athlete. By the time he went to high school in Dustin, a little ways south, he’d honed in on basketball. A lot of cousins would move north to Henryetta, or even farther to places like Okmulgee or Tulsa, but after playing basketball for two years in junior college, Patrick moved back to Ryal.
By the time Patrick was sitting on his front porch that hot August morning, he had lived back home for almost a decade. Through an opening in the trees, he watched a car pull into the driveway. It was Mark Taylor, the cousin he’d been waiting on. Patrick threw a cooler of beer in the back of his green Chevy pickup truck, and both men piled in. After the cousins moved furniture and ate some barbecue, it was about six or seven o’clock. On a long, hot summer day the sun still sat high in the sky. They decided to go driving around. Not unlike the days they had spent roaming the hills of Ryal as kids on foot, except now they were roaming the back roads of McIntosh County by truck.
*
George Jacobs was older than Patrick, but from the same community. Since it was all family down there, George Jacobs’s grandma and Patrick Murphy’s great-grandma were sisters, which made them cousins in a way. In his half century of life, George had seen a lot, including a tour in Vietnam. After growing up in Ryal, he moved to Tulsa, where he worked as a mechanic rebuilding motors. There, he lived in a second-story apartment above his older sister. She remembered George coming downstairs every Saturday morning and saying “It’s time to eat” after cooking breakfast. “George was a younger brother, an easygoing guy who was always willing to help anyone if he could,” she would later say. (The Jacobs family did not want to speak about the case—one relative told me it was still too painful. Their comments about George are taken from court transcripts and victim impact statements.)
George Jacobs also spent that Saturday driving around with his cousin, also named Mark. George and Mark Sumka met up that morning on the Okfuskee-Okmulgee county line and decided to drive around in George’s black Dodge sedan. It was a normal thing to do on the weekend—backroading, visiting friends, and dropping in on relatives. Until nightfall, the Dodge sedan would meander back and forth along the four-lane Indian Nation Turnpike and the braided curves of the North Canadian River.
One of their last stops was George’s mother’s house, where George grew up. Down in the North Canadian River bottom, the house sat at the dead end of the same county road that went past the Murphy place. The matriarch of the Jacobs family was a lifelong member of Hickory Ground #1 Baptist Church and a homemaker who liked to garden, can fruit, and hand-stitch quilts. But she was in her seventies now, and the house was getting run-down. That day, George told his cousin he was thinking about moving back home. He wanted to help his mom fix the place up.
When night fell, George and Sumka took back roads down to a little country bar. At about 8:30 or 9 p.m., they sat down and ordered sandwiches. Mr. G’s bar sat in an old, rock building that had once been the post office for Vernon, Oklahoma. The handful of streets in Vernon, which is about nine miles south of Ryal, are named after the Southern states from which its early residents fled: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. As Oklahoma was becoming a state, Black people saw it as a potential oasis from the violence and segregation of the South, and they founded over fifty all-Black towns there. Vernon is one of thirteen that still exists. In its heyday, the town hosted a grocery store, hardware store, cotton gin, cafés, a syrup mill, and a hotel. Today, the only public establishments left in Vernon are churches.
By the time they finished their sandwiches, George was pretty drunk. After Sumka helped him into the passenger seat of the Dodge sedan, George passed out. Sumka took the keys and drove back north on the only road out of town: Vernon Road.
*
By the summer of the murder, Patrick and his girlfriend, Amy, had been together for five and a half years (her name has been changed here). According to Amy, Patrick would get jealous over little things, like if Amy talked to other people at work. If she read a book, Patrick would ask her “what was more important, my book or him,” she remembered. But the biggest thing that made Patrick jealous was George Jacobs. Amy had dated George for three years and they had a child together. That summer their daughter, Megan, was nine years old. As an adult, Megan remembered going outside when Patrick would beat her mother.
The Thursday before the murder Amy had gone into town to apply for a job. When she got home, Patrick accused her of going to see George. According to Amy, she and George no longer spoke. But Patrick didn’t believe her. He told Amy she should go back and live with George if she wanted. As the fight escalated, Patrick threatened to kill George Jacobs and his entire family. He said he was “going to get them one by one.”
Driving around that Saturday, the first relative Patrick and Mark Taylor dropped in on was a young man named Billy Jack Long. Billy Jack was the baby of all the cousins and that summer had just turned eighteen. He wanted to go out riding with the older men. “There’s no room for kids in this truck,” Taylor replied, knowing he and Patrick had been drinking. But Patrick and Billy Jack insisted. “He looked up to Pat a whole lot,” Taylor later told me. “And I sure wish he [Patrick] hadn’t drug him down that road.” Later, as the three cousins watched a neighbor rope calves, Taylor remembered he had told his wife he would watch their kids that night. He went home, leaving Patrick and Billy Jack to meander through the dark night without him.
The southern half of Muscogee Nation’s treaty territory, including Ryal, is rural. In these isolated communities lies the heartbeat of Muscogee culture.
Katherine King spent that Saturday painting duck decoys at a factory in Okmulgee County, and after she got off, her eyes, along with everything else, needed rest. She was asleep when Patrick’s loud truck motor in the driveway woke her up. Lifting the blinds with one hand, she looked to see who was there and recognized the green Chevrolet (she and Patrick used to work together). Next to Katherine in bed was her boyfriend of three years, who, in the complicated relationships of their close-knit community, was George Jacobs’s son. Through a crack in the kitchen door, she asked Patrick what he wanted. “Is he here?” Patrick replied. It wasn’t a friendly question. Katherine told Patrick that if he didn’t leave she would call the police. But her fourteen-year-old son, Kevin, wanted to go out drinking and riding around with the older men. People who knew Kevin called him “Bear.” At first Patrick wasn’t sure he wanted the kid to come, but Kevin offered to bring his own thirty-pack. Patrick would later say he let Kevin tag along so he could save money on beer.
Map of Vernon Area
With Patrick behind the wheel, Kevin King and Billy Jack Long piled onto the long bench seat. Patrick knew a country bar he thought would let the teenagers drink. It was a little south of where he lived, somewhere in the small town of Vernon. By the time Patrick turned left on Vernon Road, it was pitch dark. He couldn’t see the road curve left, then right, or the view from the top of the hill before it stretches out straight and flat. He could only see the rhythm of trees and fence posts through the moving patch of headlight beams.
On the unlit dirt road Patrick saw another car coming toward him. When the car got close, Patrick recognized it; it was George’s black sedan. Mark Sumka, who was still behind the wheel, had known Patrick since the first grade, and slowed down to say hi. The two cars stopped in the middle of the road, their windows parallel. Patrick asked Sumka who else was in the car. When Sumka said it was George Jacobs, Patrick told Sumka to kill the engine. Scared, Sumka took off. On the narrow road, Patrick swung his car around and sped up. He passed the sedan, then made a sharp right, cutting Sumka off with his truck. Sumka slammed on the brakes. In a cloud of dust, three figures jumped out of Patrick Murphy’s truck.
Before Sumka could put the car in park, Kevin and Billy Jack pulled George Jacobs out of the passenger seat and started punching him. Bewildered, Sumka ran around the corner of the car, but Billy Jack punched him in the face, hard. Blood gushed from Sumka’s nose and he fell to the ground. The sounds of the fight and the red glow of taillights dimmed as he went unconscious from the blow. When Sumka came to, he was alone. Afraid, he started running—away from the men and the fight, and into the dark. He hid—about a hundred yards away, breathless and bloody. But as he stood there his fear turned to worry. What about George? By the time he walked back toward the headlight beams, it was too late. He saw George lying in the ditch.
__________________________________
From the book By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle. Copyright © 2024 by Rebecca Nagle. Excerpted courtesy of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
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Oklahoma
WATCH: Oklahoma OL Logan Howland Post-Practice Interview
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RANDALL SWEET
Randall is a recruiting analyst and staff writer at AllSooners focusing primarily on OU Football and the recruiting trail.
Working as a journalist, Randall has covered the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and high school sports across the state.
A 2022 University of Oklahoma graduate, Randall hails from Lubbock, TX. While in college, Sweet wrote for the OU Daily in addition to working with Sooner Sports Pad and OU Nightly. Following his time at OU, Sweet served as the Communications Coordinator at Visit Oklahoma City before leaving to join the team at AllSooners. The West Texas native has bylines in the Norman Transcript and is a Staff Writer for Inside the Thunder.
Randall holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK.
Oklahoma
Should Oklahoma State football be concerned about defense? Mike Gundy says ‘it’s fixable’
![Should Oklahoma State football be concerned about defense? Mike Gundy says ‘it’s fixable’ Should Oklahoma State football be concerned about defense? Mike Gundy says ‘it’s fixable’](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/09/07/NOKL/75124967007-dsc-08408.jpg?auto=webp&crop=3722,2094,x0,y335&format=pjpg&width=1200)
STILLWATER — In addressing his team’s defensive issues from the 39-31 win over Arkansas on Saturday, Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy kept coming back to coaching preparation.
The Cowboys allowed 648 yards, but came up with some clutch takeaways and big plays late to help pull out the victory.
“The majority of the problems was we got outcoached,” Gundy said Monday at his weekly news conference. “Then our players were put in the wrong positions. (Arkansas players) were running wide open. The good news is this: it’s fixable.
“If players don’t have schemes that give them an equal opportunity or a better opportunity than the opponent, you’re exposed.”
The Cowboys were at a bit of a disadvantage, considering Arkansas — which has several new players and a new offensive coordinator — did not have to use much of its offensive playbook in its season-opening win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
Gundy said over half of the Razorbacks’ first 15 plays had not been seen on tape.
The Cowboys made halftime adjustments that didn’t slow the wave of Arkansas’ yardage, but held them to 10 points in the second half and overtime.
“One was pressure, and two, we made minor adjustments concept-wise with their run game, which was better,” Gundy said. “We had (quarterback Taylen Green) eight times and we didn’t get him down.”
Here are a few more takeaways from Gundy’s news conference:
More: Oklahoma State football bowl projections 2024: Where are Cowboys entering Tulsa game?
Run game remains a concern
After averaging 3.8 yards per carry in the season opener, the Pokes averaged just 2.3 per rush against Arkansas, which will continue to be an area of concern until they get back up to Gundy’s preferred mark of 4.2.
“They had more people in the box than we could block,” Gundy said of the Razorback defense. “You have to have the ability to throw more passes, which we did in the second half.
“Our offensive line play has been average. Hasn’t been bad. Pass protection has been excellent. Their play in that area has been really good.”
The Cowboys have yet to allow a sack through two games.
More: Oklahoma State football vs Tulsa: TV channel, betting line, scouting report for Week 3
No change on Collin Oliver’s injury status
After the game, Gundy wasn’t fully definitive in saying Collin Oliver would be out for the year because of the broken foot he suffered Saturday, and nothing had changed by Monday afternoon.
Oliver suffered a Jones Fracture, a break in the fifth metatarsal, according to his father’s social media post. That will require surgery, but it is unclear exactly how long his recovery will last.
Gundy said more should be known in a month about the length of Oliver’s absence.
But Gundy also mentioned that middle linebacker Justin Wright will be out for a significant period of time. Wright has not played this season, after missing most of last year with a torn ACL.
More: Oklahoma State football unveils game time, TV for Cowboys’ Week 4 game vs. Utah
De’Zhaun Stribling overcame illness
OSU receiver De’Zhaun Stribling had 38 receiving yards on four catches Saturday, but Gundy said the redshirt junior was playing through an illness that resulted in him being sick on the sideline.
“He made some plays,” Gundy said. “He had a couple balls that we feel he’ll make those catches. But he didn’t feel well. That’s one of the things about athletics, college football and daily life. There’s times we don’t’ feel well and we gotta go to work.”
More: Oklahoma State football’s Mike Gundy voices frustration with SEC officials vs. Arkansas
Martin, Ezeigbo get Big 12 honors
Despite allowing over 600 yards in the 39-31, double-overtime defeat of Arkansas, the Oklahoma State defense pulled in a couple of Big 12 awards.
Middle linebacker Nick Martin was named the league’s defensive player of the week after logging 16 tackles, his second double-digit tackle effort in as many games. Nine of his tackles came in the fourth quarter and overtime.
Defensive end Obi Ezeigbo, who stepped in after Oliver was injured in the first half, finished the game with nine tackles, 2.0 sacks and 3.5 tackles for loss to earn newcomer of the week honors.
Oklahoma
Tulane Green Wave Seek Bounce Back Win on Road at Oklahoma Sooners
![Tulane Green Wave Seek Bounce Back Win on Road at Oklahoma Sooners Tulane Green Wave Seek Bounce Back Win on Road at Oklahoma Sooners](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_4096,h_2304,x_0,y_365/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/voltaxMediaLibrary/mmsport/tulane_green_wave_on_si/01j6zery8egjvy045fg7.jpg)
The Tulane Green Wave can’t dwell on what happened against Kansas State. A trip to Oklahoma is just a few days away.
The Green Wave (1-1) travel to the Oklahoma Sooners (2-0) for a 2:30 p.m. central game on ESPN. Tulane will get a second massive showcase on the biggest network in sports against a power conference team it is capable of beating.
Yep, that’s the only logical assumption after last week — the Green Wave may be underdogs, but they certainly have a chance.
Tulane had every chance to beat Kansas State on Saturday, losing by seven points. The brilliance of their young quarterback, Darian Mensah, was overshadowed a bit by his late fumble, which led to Kansas State’s go-ahead touchdown. But he showed great poise in a game where he was under immense pressure and that bodes well for the rest of the season.
On the other hand, Oklahoma is coming off a 14-12 win over Houston. Sooners coach Brent Venables said they should have lost. And if you watched the game, you’d have to agree with him. The Sooners were able to avert an embarrassing loss against a former Big 12 comrade.
But what happens now? Are the Sooners in trouble? Does that close call jolt them from an early-season funk? No one can be sure until Saturday.
Tulane has been to Norman before and the Green Wave nearly beat the Sooners in their last meeting three years ago. And one could argue that this Sooners team is not as good as the one Tulane nearly beat in 2021.
Here is a preview of the Green Wave and the Wildcats.
Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
Time: 2:30 p.m. CT
TV: ESPN
Radio: KVDU 104.1 The Spot (flagship)
Coaches: Tulane — Jon Sumrall (1-1 at Tulane, 24-5 career as head coach); Oklahoma — Brent Venables (18-10 at Oklahoma and overall).
Fun fact: Oklahoma joined the SEC this year. Tulane was a member of the SEC from 1932-65. The Green Wave won three SEC titles in 1934, 1939 and 1949. So, college football fans live in a world where Tulane has more SEC titles than Oklahoma.
All-Times Series: Oklahoma leads series, 2-0
Last meeting: Oklahoma def. Tulane, 40-35 (Sept. 4, 2021).
Series notes: Yes, the two teams have only met twice. The 2021 game was supposed to be in New Orleans, but Hurricane Ida forced the game to be moved to Norman.
Last Week: Tulane lost to Kansas State, 34-27; Oklahoma def. Houston, 14-12
About Tulane: No one in New Orleans was happy with the ending to the Kansas State game, but there’s an awful lot for the Green Wave to build on.
It’s clear the decision to start Mensah, a redshirt freshman, was the right one as he built on his performance against Southeastern Louisiana in a big way against K-State. The defense built on the opportunistic brand of ball it played in the season opener.
Perhaps most importantly, Tulane proved that even it lost great players like quarterback Michael Pratt, the Green Wave is still capable of competing with power conference competition. Yes, Tulane is not undefeated anymore. But the Sumrall era is off to a good start.
About Oklahoma: This is year three for Venables and the locals in Norman are starting to get a smidge restless. After years of winning Big 12 titles and making the College Football Playoff under Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley, the Sooners failed to reach the Big 12 Championship game in the first two years under Venables.
Now, Oklahoma moves into the SEC, where right now it appears to be “just another team.” That is not Oklahoma’s standard. Things only got more complicated for Venables after his Sooners barely beat Houston on Saturday.
Imagine the embarrassment had the Sooners lost to a Big 12 team, and a second-year Big 12 team at that? Venables has some things to prove.
Next Up: Tulane travels to Louisiana on Sept. 21. Oklahoma opens SEC play at home against Tennessee on Sept. 21.
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