Seminole Resident Sentenced For Murder

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Douglas Vaughn Switch, Jr., age 47, of Seminole, Oklahoma, was sentenced to a term in prison for 168 months for one count of Second Degree Murder in Indian Country.

The charges arose from investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, and the Seminole Nation Lighthorse Police Department.

On September 25, 2023, Switch pleaded guilty to the charge.  According to investigators, on the evening of October 23, 2022, Switch fired a single round from a .380, killing the victim instantly.  Law enforcement officers responding to a 911 call discovered Switch pressing the .380 pistol to his own chin and sitting beside the body of the deceased on the front porch of a Seminole residence.  The crime occurred in Seminole County, within the boundaries of the Seminole Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable Keith Starrett, U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, sitting by assignment, presided over the hearing in Muskogee.  Switch will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant United States Attorney Erin Cornell represented the United States.