Lawmaker is key eyewitness in 1984 homicide cold case
IDABEL — A southeastern Oklahoma lawmaker was an eyewitness in a cold case homicide from 1984 that finally could be headed for trial.
State Rep. Johnny Tadlock, D-Idabel, was a 20-year-old lumber mill worker when another employee, Johnny Lee Smith, was shot and killed inside the mill.
The homicide investigation languished for years, but new evidence has led Oklahoma Attorney General Michael Hunter to file a first-degree murder charge against the suspect, Ernest Alvin Lewis.
Tadlock and three others in his maintenance crew were sitting on tailgates outside the mill eating supper when they heard a gunshot.
A few seconds later, according to an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation affidavit, the men saw Lewis drive past them erratically in a construction vehicle.
“When he left that office where the victim was, he came straight at us,” Tadlock said Thursday from his home near the Red River. “When he turned, he looked straight at us. It was him driving that rig.”
Lewis, now 65, was considered a suspect from the beginning and was charged in the killing. The investigation found Lewis’ mother had bought a pistol that could have fired the fatal shot.
Despite the testimony and evidence at the scene, a judge in 1984 decided prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence and dismissed the charge.
“It happened so long ago, and things are different and evidence is different,” Tadlock said. “I just think they have the information now and they decided to pursue it. To me, it was always pretty clear, as far as circumstantially, who had committed the crime. In my mind, I just know.”
Lewis remained free of a murder conviction and eventually made his way to Colorado, where he’s about to finish a four-year sentence in state prison on an assault charge.
According to Colorado prison records, Lewis is scheduled to be released Sept. 4.
After working at the lumber mill, Tadlock joined the local police force and then the sheriff’s department. He served as sheriff of McCurtain County before being elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2014.
While he was sheriff, Tadlock assisted in a renewed investigation into the case. In 2011, agents exhumed Smith’s body to collect DNA evidence that led to the new charge filed Tuesday.
Tadlock said his involvement in the murder investigation didn’t influence his decision to work in law enforcement. He had thought about being a police officer for a while before the murder. The town’s police chief, a friend of his father, eventually invited him to suit up.