Our Arklahoma Heritage: The son of an Eastern Oklahoma politician rose to head up the infamous Die Mafia

Kirksey McCord Nix Jr.

Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. was just 22 years old when Fort Smith police arrested him in December 1965 for carrying illegal automatic weapons. He had been staying with Juanda Jones, a woman who ran a bordello in the area, and had grown close to her teenage daughter, Sheri LaRa Jones.

The arrest appeared to be a minor incident for the son of a prominent Oklahoma judge, yet it marked the beginning of Nix's long and violent involvement with the loose criminal network known as the Dixie Mafia

.Born in 1943 into a respected family in Eufaula, Oklahoma, Nix enjoyed every advantage growing up. His father, Kirksey M. Nix Sr., had served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, the state senate, and later as a justice on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. The elder Nix died in 1979, but his political connections helped his son early on. With assistance from those Oklahoma ties, the younger Nix beat the weapons charges in Fort Smith and walked free.

 He left town with more than a criminal record. He left with a romantic connection to Sheri LaRa Jones, who would later change her name to Sheri LaRa Sharpe and become a central figure in his schemes.

Nix rose through the ranks of the Dixie Mafia, a loosely organized group of white Southern criminals active across Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and beyond from the 1960s through the 1980s. Based primarily in Biloxi, Mississippi, and protected by figures like strip club owner Mike Gillich Jr., the network specialized in drug dealing, gambling, robbery, and contract killings.

 Nix developed a reputation as a key player and alleged kingpin. He dabbled in insurance fraud and narcotics, but his most profitable enterprise became the cold-hearted lonely hearts scam.

While serving a life sentence without parole at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola for the 1971 murder of New Orleans grocery executive Frank Corso, Nix ran the scam from his cell.

Sheri LaRa Sharpe

He and his associates targeted gay men across the country with fake romantic letters, extracting thousands of dollars in supposed bail money or travel funds. Much of that cash flowed through Sheri LaRa Sharpe, who had stayed loyal to Nix since their days in Fort Smith.

She worked unofficially as a paralegal at the Biloxi law firm of Halat and Sherry and helped move the proceeds.

The scam turned deadly in 1987. When some of the money went missing, Nix allegedly ordered the murders of Circuit Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife, Margaret Sherry, a former Biloxi councilwoman. Prosecutors said the killings were meant to intimidate or eliminate anyone who might expose the operation.

 Hit men carried out the contract killings in the Sherrys Biloxi home. Nix, Gillich, John Ransom, and Sheri LaRa Sharpe were later indicted on federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and murder for hire.

 All were convicted. Nix received additional life sentences.

Throughout his decades behind bars, Nix maintained ties to his Oklahoma roots. Family members, including a sister who still lives in Eufaula, remained in contact. In late 2023, at age 80 and suffering from congestive heart failure, diabetes, sleep apnea, and mobility issues that left him in a wheelchair, Nix filed a motion for compassionate release.

He hoped to live out his remaining days with his sister and niece, both registered nurses, in his hometown. Federal prosecutors opposed the request, arguing that he continued to pose a danger and was receiving adequate care. The motion was denied in early 2025, and Nix remains incarcerated today at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri

. Now 82 years old, he has spent more than half his life in prison with no release date in sight.

Juanda Jones, the Fort Smith bordello operator who first introduced the teenage Sheri LaRa Jones to Nix in 1965, largely faded from public view afterward. No confirmed obituary or detailed death records for her appear in available sources. She is remembered mainly as a peripheral figure in the early Dixie Mafia connections along the Arkansas-Oklahoma border.

Her daughter, Sheri LaRa Sharpe, remained loyal to Nix for decades and played a key role in the lonely-hearts scam. She was convicted in federal court and ultimately sentenced to five years in prison. Sharpe was released from federal custody in 2002 and has lived quietly in Florida ever since. As of 2026, she is still alive and maintains a very low profile, declining most requests for interviews.

 One of her daughters, Heather Eason, has occasionally spoken about the difficult family legacy tied to her mothers involvement with Nix and the Dixie Mafia.

The Fort Smith arrest that seemed so insignificant in 1965 proved to be a pivotal moment. It introduced Nix to the Jones family, solidified his early criminal contacts in the Arkansas-Oklahoma border region, and launched a career that left a trail of violence across the South.

 For residents of western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma who remember the era of cross-border crime, the name Kirksey Nix Jr. still evokes the dark underbelly of the Dixie Mafia, a loose alliance of outlaws whose reach extended far beyond any single arrest or small town bordello.

 Decades later, with Nix still serving life sentences and the bodies of his victims long buried, the story serves as a stark reminder of how one early brush with the law in Fort Smith helped create one of the regions most notorious crime figures.