Kenneth Keeling Jr., 41, was a White/Caucasian man whose life was abruptly taken by gunfire at the Summerfield Village Apartments in Norman, Oklahoma, on December 14, 2015. Shortly before 10 p.m., Norman police were called to the complex at 920 E. Lindsey Street and found Keeling suffering from a gunshot wound. He was rushed to a local hospital but died from his injuries.
Later reporting indicated that Keeling had been outside on the balcony area of his apartment, smoking a cigarette, when the shooting erupted. His wife, Jeannie, said she and their daughter desperately tried to save him, with Jeannie performing CPR as he slipped away.
The shooting devastated a family that had been living at the apartment complex for only about seven months. Keeling worked as a truck driver and had been with Jeannie for approximately 21 years; they had three children. He had grown up in Cushing, Oklahoma. In the immediate aftermath, his family could not identify any reason anyone would have deliberately targeted him. As investigators pieced together what had happened, that uncertainty gave way to evidence that Keeling had apparently not been the intended target at all. Police concluded that he was an innocent bystander caught in gunfire directed toward another group of people.
The investigation eventually centered on Mathiaz Oropeza, Anthony Bing Alexander Mundell and Tevin Kyreece Martin-Hicks. Prosecutors alleged that the violence grew out of an attempt to retaliate against people believed to have stolen marijuana. According to court documents described in news reports, Mundell and another person had discussed locating the people they believed responsible for the theft. Mundell reportedly told investigators that a friend then began firing in the direction of those people. One of the bullets struck Keeling, who had no apparent involvement in the underlying dispute and was simply outside his residence when the confrontation unfolded.
By early February 2016, Norman police had arrested 17-year-old Mathiaz Oropeza and 19-year-old Anthony Mundell. Both were charged with first-degree murder in connection with Keeling's death. Authorities continued searching for Martin-Hicks, who was 18 at the time and was identified as another murder suspect. As weeks passed without his capture, Norman police and Crime Stoppers increased the reward for information leading to his arrest to $1,000. Keeling's wife made a public appeal for help, describing how deeply the killing had affected her children and family and asking anyone who knew Martin-Hicks's whereabouts to come forward so the family could have some measure of closure.
The search for Martin-Hicks ended in June 2016 outside Oklahoma. Authorities located him in Independence, Kansas, where he was arrested on June 6 on a first-degree murder complaint connected to Keeling's killing. Reports said Martin-Hicks initially attempted to flee from the residence where officers were trying to locate him but returned, after which authorities obtained a search warrant and took him into custody. At that point Oropeza and Mundell were already being held in connection with the homicide, and arrangements were made to return Martin-Hicks to Oklahoma to face prosecution.
Cleveland County court records show that Martin-Hicks was formally charged on June 20, 2016, with first-degree murder under an allegation that he acted in concert with Mathias Harley Oropeza and Anthony Bing Alexander Mundell. The case continued through preliminary proceedings, amended charging documents and pretrial hearings for nearly two years. On March 29, 2018, Martin-Hicks entered a guilty plea. The court docket records a conviction and a final judgment filed in April 2018 imposing a life sentence with all but the first 35 years suspended, along with credit for time already served. The disposition therefore required him to serve the first 35 years of the sentence in the Oklahoma Department of Corrections before the suspended portion could take effect under the terms of the judgment.
The prosecution established that Keeling's death was the unintended result of gunfire aimed at others, transforming what had apparently begun as retaliation over an alleged drug theft into a homicide that took the life of an uninvolved husband and father. Oropeza and Mundell were publicly identified, arrested and charged with first-degree murder, while Martin-Hicks was eventually captured after a months-long search and ultimately convicted. Available online reporting and court material located for this case clearly document the arrests and original murder charges against Oropeza and Mundell, but do not provide equally clear and reliable final dispositions for those two defendants; consequently, no specific conviction, acquittal, dismissal or sentence for either is stated here.
