True Crime Chronicles: Long-simmering feud ended in 2019 murder and multiple sentences for three family members
- Dennis McCaslin
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
In the quiet hills of Delaware County old grudges can simmer for years before exploding into violence. On a warm August evening in 2019, that simmering rage boiled over at a modest home near Grove, where Jerry Wayne Tapp pulled into his driveway after a long day of work.
Tapp, a 49-year-old local man, never made it inside. As he stepped out of his vehicle into the front yard, gunfire erupted. Multiple shots rang out in rapid succession. Tapp collapsed in the yard, fatally wounded by several bullets. His live-in girlfriend, Cassie Gonzales, who was with him, was struck in the arm but survived the attack.
The shooters did not flee immediately. They had come prepared and waited deliberately. James William Buzzard, then 46, a Cherokee Nation citizen living in the Grove area, had orchestrated the ambush along with his two adult sons, Cody Dwayne Buzzard and Dakota Chase Buzzard.
The three men had parked up the road, retrieved a loaded .22-caliber rifle from the trunk of their car, and positioned themselves to strike the moment Tapp arrived home.This was no random act of violence. It was cold, calculated revenge rooted in a family trauma from four years earlier.
In June 2015, Jerry Tapp had fired a shotgun into a vehicle occupied by James Buzzard and an 11-year-old girl who was a member of the Buzzard family. The young girl suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound in that earlier incident, an event that left deep scars and a burning desire for payback in the Buzzard household.
On that August 1 night, James Buzzard fired the first shots at Tapp. He then handed the rifle to his son Cody, who continued firing. The coordinated attack left Tapp dead in his own yard and his girlfriend wounded.
Deputies from the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office arrived after a 911 call and quickly pieced together evidence, including shell casings and vehicle descriptions, that pointed directly to the Buzzard family.
The case took a complicated legal path. The Buzzards were initially charged in Oklahoma state court. James faced first-degree murder charges, while his sons were also implicated.
But the landmark 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma changed everything. It reaffirmed the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation reservation, meaning the crime had occurred in Indian Country and fell under federal jurisdiction. State charges were dismissed, the men were briefly released, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma eventually took over.
In March 2022, a federal grand jury indicted James William Buzzard, Cody Dwayne Buzzard, and Dakota Chase Buzzard on charges including first-degree murder in Indian Country, assault with a dangerous weapon, and firearms violations. The three aided and abetted one another in the killing, prosecutors argued.
Cody Buzzard
Cody and Dakota chose to plead guilty rather than go to trial. Cody admitted to second-degree murder in Indian Country and to brandishing and discharging a firearm during the crime. Dakota pleaded guilty to conspiracy to carry, use, brandish, and discharge a firearm during a crime of violence.J
ames William Buzzard, however, took his case before a federal jury in Tulsa. In July 2023, after hearing the evidence, the jury convicted him on all counts: first-degree murder in Indian Country, assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm in Indian Country, and carrying, using, or discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
Sentencing came in May 2025 before U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell. James Buzzard, then 52, received life imprisonment plus 10 years. The life sentence means he will spend the rest of his natural life behind bars in the federal prison system with no possibility of parole.
His sons received lesser but still significant terms: Cody was ordered to serve 25 years, and Dakota received six and a half years, both followed by supervised release.
The case highlighted the long reach of federal law in Indian Country and the lasting impact of unresolved family conflicts. What began as a 2015 shooting that wounded a child ended years later with a father and his sons lying in wait, a rifle passed from hand to hand, and a man dying in his own front yard.
Today, James William Buzzard remains incarcerated, serving his life sentence. The quiet roads of Delaware County carry on, but for the families involved, the echoes of those gunshots and the old grudge that fueled them will linger far longer
. In the end, the pursuit of revenge delivered only permanent loss, locked cells, and a final, irreversible judgment from the federal courts.
