OKLAHOMA
A jury convicted a 53-year-old man for murdering three people who were celebrating a birthday party in 2004, officials announced.
David Brian Magnan,was convicted in the shooting deaths of three victims, James Howard, Karen Wolf and Lucilla McGirt, who were all members of the Seminole Nation.
U.S. District Court Judge Ronald A. White of the Eastern District of Oklahoma presided over Magnan’s second trial, which lasted a week, officials said.
Magnan pleaded guilty in 2005 to state murder charges and was sentenced to death – and to life in prison for shooting with intent to kill. A federal appeals court overturned the convictions and sentences because the state can’t convict him on crimes he committed that occurred in Indian country. The appeals court ruled that only the federal government could prosecute him, according to officials.
The evidence at trial in federal court indicated the following:
- The victims were celebrating a birthday on the evening of March 1, 2004, at Howard’s home.
- In the early morning hours of March 2, 2004, Magnan arrived at the home with two other men. Armed with a pistol, Magnan confronted an individual outside of the house and a fight ensued, after which Magnan shot the individual in the abdomen,
- Magnan then entered the home where he found the three victims asleep.
- He first confronted Howard, who he shot multiple times in the chest as he lay in bed. Magnan then moved to a bedroom where he found McGirt and Wolf sleeping.
- Magnan shot Wolf in the head and shot McGirt in the shoulder and head.
- McGirt survived that evening and identified Magnan as the shooter, but she ultimately succumbed to her wounds and died two weeks later.
- Following the shootings, Magnan and the two other men fled the scene and hid the murder weapon, which police subsequently recovered.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, the Seminole Nation Lighthorse Police and the FBI investigated the case, officials announced.