True Crime Chronicles: Triple murder in Cherokee County in early 2022 resulted in a term of life in prison without parole
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In the quiet hills east of Tahlequah, where the Cherokee Nation reservation stretches across rolling land and the Illinois River cuts through the countryside, a property near Eldon became the scene of a grim discovery in late January 2022.
Robert Edwin Lewis, then 61 and living in the area after years that had taken him from California through Arkansas, had buried three people on land tied to his family. The bodies lay in shallow graves under leaves and soil, hidden until a relative from Arkansas came looking for one of the missing.
Quinley Lamb, 43, of Sharp County, Arkansas, had been reported missing by her family on January 24. Her brother Jimmy traveled to the Cherokee County property, roughly 250 miles from his home, and found her remains. What began as a search for one person quickly expanded.
Deputies and investigators located two more bodies on the same ground: Brian Shackelford, also of Sharp County, Arkansas, and Deanna Tippey, 36, of Cherokee County, who had been Lewis’s girlfriend. Autopsy findings later established the manner of each death.
Lamb had died from blunt force trauma that fractured her skull. Shackelford’s throat had been cut. Tippey had been strangled. The killings of Lamb and Shackelford occurred around January 16, the day Lewis turned 61. Tippey died several days afterward.
Lewis himself brought the investigation to a swift close. He contacted a family member who worked as a Tahlequah police officer and admitted to the deaths. Officers found him that same evening at the Cherokee Casino in Tahlequah, playing a slot machine. He was taken into custody without resistance.
In questioning he confirmed he had killed all three and described burying them on the property. He offered no clear motive. Investigators noted that the people involved had ties to narcotics, yet the precise reason for the violence remained unexplained. Lewis had moved to the area about fifteen years earlier after time in Arkansas.
He was a Marine veteran and appeared to have been unemployed for some time, possibly receiving disability benefits. His mailing address was listed in Stilwell, though the property itself sat in Cherokee County east of Tahlequah.
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office led the response, with help from Tahlequah police, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Cherokee Nation marshals, and a local drug and violent crimes task force. Lewis was charged in Cherokee County District Court with three counts of first-degree murder.
Because neither he nor the victims were enrolled members of a tribe, the case stayed in state court rather than moving to federal prosecution under Indian Country jurisdiction. The District Attorney’s office later filed a bill of particulars seeking the death penalty. Lewis initially pleaded not guilty. Questions about his mental and physical health delayed proceedings; he was eventually found competent to stand trial.
Nearly three and a half years after the bodies were found, the case reached its resolution in June 2025. Lewis, by then 64, appeared before District Judge Douglas Kirkley and entered a guilty plea to all three counts. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on each count, the terms to run concurrently.
District Attorney Jack Thorp said he had wanted a Cherokee County jury to hear the evidence and consider a death sentence, but Lewis’s deteriorating health made a capital trial impractical. The plea, Thorp noted, gave the victims’ families a measure of closure. Victim impact statements were read in court. Lewis was ordered into the custody of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
The case left lasting questions about why the violence happened on that stretch of land and what, if anything, might have prevented it. The property, a mobile home on roughly thirty acres, had no formal ownership listing under Lewis’s name in county records, though a relative held title. Neighbors and family members described a quiet, isolated setting.
The rapid confession and the recovery of all three bodies within days of the first discovery meant the investigation never stretched into a prolonged manhunt. For the families of Quinley Lamb, Brian Shackelford, and Deanna Tippey, the guilty plea ended years of waiting, even as the reasons behind the killings stayed largely out of reach.
Lewis will spend the rest of his life in prison under the concurrent life sentences imposed in Cherokee County.
