Idabel Resident Pleads Guilty To Murder In Indian Country And Federal Firearm Crime

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Zachary Carlton Ty Capps, age 28, of Idabel, Oklahoma, pleaded guilty to charges in a Superseding Indictment related to the murder of an Idabel resident.

At the plea hearing, Capps pleaded guilty to one count of Second Degree Murder in Indian Country and one count of Use, Carry, Brandish, and Discharge of a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence.  Capps admitted during the plea hearing he discharged a firearm to commit the murder.

According to investigators, Capps was seen with the victim in a white truck on November 15, 2022.  Later that evening, law enforcement located Capps at a house in Idabel.  During a search of the residence, agents located and recovered a revolver that was reported to be in Capps’s possession earlier in the night.  Two days later, the victim was discovered in the same white truck, having been shot in the head.  According to forensic reports, the revolver recovered from the Idabel residence fired the fatal bullet.  The crime occurred in McCurtain County, within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The charges arose from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Choctaw Nation Tribal Police, the Idabel Police Department, and the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office.

The Honorable Judge Gerald L. Jackson, U.S. Magistrate Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, accepted the plea and ordered the completion of a presentence investigation report.  Capps was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals pending sentencing.

Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin D. Traster represented the United States.