On Memorial Day, May 30, 2005, James Donnie Swindle Jr., a 49-year-old male, was brutally murdered in a quadruple homicide at his trailer in an industrial area of Del City, Oklahoma. The attack was a violent and calculated act of revenge orchestrated by Gilbert Ray Postelle, who wrongly believed Swindle was responsible for a 2004 motorcycle accident that left his father with severe brain damage.
There was no evidence to support this belief.
On that evening, Gilbert Postelle, along with his brother David Postelle, his father Brad Postelle, and another man named Randall Wade Byus, drove to Swindle's trailer in a maroon van. Armed with assault rifles, they launched what was described as a 'blitz attack,' firing nearly 100 shots. Three other individuals, Amy Wright, 26, James Alderson, 57, and Terry Smith, 56, were also killed in the massacre. Witnesses reported hearing a barrage of gunfire and seeing the van speeding away from the scene, with the occupants laughing.
The investigation led police to the Postelle family. Gilbert Postelle and his brother David were arrested in August 2005. In 2008, Gilbert Postelle was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder. For the murders of Amy Wright and James Alderson, he received two death sentences. For the deaths of James Donnie Swindle Jr. and Terry Smith, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. David Postelle was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Their father, Brad Postelle, was deemed incompetent to stand trial due to his injuries from the motorcycle accident and later died in 2011. Randall Byus cooperated with authorities and received a plea deal in exchange for his testimony against Gilbert Postelle. Several other individuals were charged as accessories for helping to cover up the crime. On February 17, 2022, Gilbert Ray Postelle was executed by lethal injection.
