JERRY FINK
MANAGING EDITOR
On Aug. 4, 2016, Henryetta resident Christopher Hathcoat, now 45, was alleged to have gunned down his father, Floyd Hathcoat, 73, and Terry Alan Wetselline, 42, at the elder Hathcoat’s rural residence on Tiger Mountain, in northwest McIntosh County.
He was arrested in Cherokee County the following day and charged on Aug. 10, 2016 in Mc-Intosh County with the double homicide, which took place on the younger Hathcoat’s 38th birthday.
At a trial that began in Eufaula in August, 2018, the jury convicted Hathcoat of killing Wetselline, his father’s friend, but not guilty of killing Floyd Hathcoat, whose brains were blown out, according to witnesses.
On the single murder conviction, Hathcoat was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Prior to the trial Hathcoat’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, but it was rejected by trial judge James Pratt.
The motion was filed two years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the McGirt vs. Oklahoma case in which the court ruled in July 2020 that the state could not prosecute Native Americans who committed crimes in Indian Country. Prosecution had to be by either tribal courts or federal courts.
Hathcoat began serving his sentence on the single murder charge.
After the McGirt decision, Hathcoat’s attorney again filed a motion with the state court to dismiss based on lack of jurisdiction.
This time, the motion was approved. The murder charge was dismissed by the state court but the U.S. District Court for Eastern Oklahoma in Muskogee quickly took up the case, filing two murder charges against Hathcoat.
On Aug. 31, 2022, Hathcoat pleaded guilty to two counts of Second Degree Murder in Indian Country.
Last week he was sentenced to 315 months (26) years, in prison. The sentences are to run concurrently.
Federal investigators said, “On August 4, 2016, Hathcoat shot and killed two victims at a Henryetta residence, stole a large quantity of cash from the house and fled in one victim’s truck. Officers located three spent .243 rifle casings and one 9 mm casing at the scene. Hathcoat was later apprehended on an unrelated warrant driving the victim’s truck at a state park. A subsequent search of the truck revealed a Remington Model 742 .243 Winchester rifle, rounds of .243 and 9mm ammunition, and a quantity of cash. The crimes occurred in McIntosh County, within the boundaries of the Muscogee Creek Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.”
The truck Hathcoat was driving belonged to his father.
Hathcoat will remain in custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-parolable sentence of incarceration.
