True Crime Chronicles: Muskogee County killer ran out of appeals in 1990 for 1979 murder of John and Roxie Steward
On February 9, 1979, 68-year-old John Seward and his 62-year-old wife Roxie arrived at the rural Muskogee County home of John’s sister Delthea Warren and her husband Dale. The couple had stopped by while the Warrens were away. Inside they encountered Charles Troy Coleman, then 31 years old, who had broken into the house to burglarize it.
Coleman was armed with a .28-gauge shotgun. He forced the Sewards into the basement at gunpoint. There he shot John once in the back of the head, killing him instantly. He then turned the weapon on Roxie and fired four times at close range, the blasts striking her from only inches away. Coleman took the couple’s wallets, a turquoise watch belonging to Delthea Warren, packages of frozen meat stamped “Hogle, Not for Sale,” and other food items before leaving.
John Seward had lived in the Muskogee area for years. Roxie, born March 6, 1917, in Arkansas, had also made her home in the community. Both were later buried in Greenhill Cemetery in Muskogee.
Their bodies were discovered later that afternoon by family members who became concerned when the Sewards did not return as expected. Investigators quickly linked Coleman to the scene.
His pickup truck had been seen near the house. That same evening officers stopped him for traffic violations. A search of the vehicle turned up the Sewards’ wallets, the packaged meat, and other items taken from the Warren home. Coleman was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of John Seward.
Prosecutors did not pursue a separate charge in Roxie’s killing, concluding that a death sentence for one murder was sufficient.
Coleman had been born March 15, 1947, in Muskogee to a sharecropping family marked by poverty and alcoholism. His criminal record stretched back to childhood and included burglaries, thefts, and assaults across multiple states. After the Seward killings he escaped from the Muskogee County jail while awaiting trial.
During the manhunt, he was stopped by a police officer near Luther. He overpowered the officer, cut his throat, and left him for dead, though the officer survived. Coleman then used the officer’s revolver in a carjacking near Sand Springs that left Russell E. Lewis dead. He was eventually captured in Arizona after kidnapping a deputy and leaving him handcuffed in the desert.
He was also suspected in the 1975 beating death of Will Stidham, the father of a former girlfriend, in California, though he was acquitted of that charge.
Venue for the Seward case was moved to Tahlequah because of pretrial publicity. In October 1979, a jury convicted Coleman of first-degree murder after less than two hours of deliberation. The same jury recommended death, and the sentence was imposed.
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals later affirmed the conviction and sentence. Coleman spent nearly eleven years on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, filing more than twenty appeals in five different courts. The United States Supreme Court declined to intervene multiple times.
.In 1987, he came within roughly thirty-six hours of execution before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay. A second execution date was set for September 10, 1990. Clemency was denied, and last-minute appeals failed.
Coleman declined a formal last meal, telling staff it would not be his last. Earlier in the day he ate a hamburger, a candy bar, and two sodas while receiving visits from family members, including his wife and children.
The only item allowed in his possession was a Bible. Shortly after midnight on September 10 he was taken into the execution chamber. He requested that Bible verses be read. His final statement was “Just tell everybody I love them and I have peace and a quiet heart.”
When a minister began reading from Matthew, Coleman said “Praise God, praise God.” The lethal injection of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride began around 12:02 a.m.
He was pronounced dead at 12:35 a.m. He was the first person executed in Oklahoma since James Donald French was electrocuted in 1966, and the first in the state to die by lethal injection. Candlelight vigils were held outside the prison and at the state capitol. No public record details the final disposition of his remains.
