Three suspects held in Haggard murder

This Week in County History

— Sequoyah County Times, Dec. 7, 1972

From the files of Your Sequoyah County Times

25 Years Ago

(From Dec. 11, 1997, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) –Sequoyah County’s three commissioners decided Monday to stop talking about jail problems and do something about them. They adopted a resolution calling for a vote of the people on a one-half cent sales tax for the sheriff’s department.

If passed at the Feb. 10 election, it will be the first Sequoyah County sales tax, said Martha Taylor, county treasurer, who can’t recall ever having a county sales tax. Residents pay only city and state sales taxes now.

“A jail is drastically needed. This one is worn out,” said Sheriff Johnny Philpot, who is faced daily with overcrowding and threats of closure by state officials.

The 83-year-old jail has antique wiring and plumbing, and the three meals a day required for inmates are prepared on a standard four-burner kitchen stove.

A new jail is needed to meet current and projected needs coming in 1998 with the truth in sentencing legislation. Philpot says “a whole bunch of people” are never going to go to prison.

50 Years Ago

(From the Dec. 7, 1972, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Ted Haggard, a Sallisaw service station owner, was murdered Monday night following what appeared to be a robbery attempt at his business located east of Sallisaw on U.S. 64. Two men and one woman are being held in custody in connection with the incident.

An all-night search ended Tuesday morning at an abandoned farm site southwest of Marble City where Haggard’s body was found at the bottom of a well. Law enforcement agencies had combed areas around Marble City most of the night Monday and early Tuesday before Oklahoma Highway patrolmen converged on the farm site and found the victim.

—Sallisaw City Manager Lloyd Haskins announced this week the arrival of the city’s new “basket truck.” The truck has been on order from the Elliot Manufacturing Co. of Omaha, Neb., for some time.

The new truck will replace a 1964 Ford truck that is being returned to Omaha on a trade-in on the new one. The high reach vehicle will be used by the city electrical department and has a reaching capacity of 50 feet vertically or horizontally. The total cost of the vehicle was $22,060, Haskins said and the city received credit of $4,500 trade-in on the old truck.

—According to Charles Rissell, manager of the Stardust Motel in Sallisaw, several large calibre shots were fired into the lobby of his motel last week.

No one was in the front office of the business when the shots were fired, but some window damage was incurred in the incident. Sallisaw police officers are still investigating the incident though no motive or leads have been uncovered in the shooting.

Rissell said apparently someone drove by the business in the night and fired the shots.

75 Years Ago

(From the Dec. 12, 1947, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Official opening of Lee’s Creek bridge between Short and Nicut is scheduled by the state highway department for late this week, Lee F. Brooks, resident engineer of the OSHD in Sallisaw, reported Thursday.

Needed to complete the job before traffic can be allowed to pass over the structure is a fill on the east approach, Brooks reports.

Work on reconstructing the bridge got underway early this past fall. The span replaces the one washed out during the heavy rains of 1945.

Traffic has been permitted over the Little Lee’s Creek bridge for the past week, the highway engineer said.

—Three farmers in this vicinity have entered the 1947 national corn growing contest sponsored by De Kalb Agricultural Assn., according to Harmon Pickle, local De Kalb representative.

The three are Arthur O’Neal, Robert C. Wade and Pervin Acker of Sallisaw.

The results of the national contest will be made known sometime in January, Pickle said.

—Hundreds of persons are viewing the new 1948 Hudson Comodore Eight now on display in the showroom of W.A. Peters and Son, Sallisaw Hudson dealers since 1936. The car arrived here Thursday, Peters Sr. reported.

The car, two-tone green in color, is the first 1948 model of any make automobile to be presented in Sequoyah County, the motor dealer declared.

Only five feet from the ground to its top, it is a car which “upon entering you step down to step into,” said Peters.

The model has a 124-inch wheelbase and its eight-cylinder engine boasts a 128-horsepower rating.

Peters remarked that Hudson expects to be able to deliver cars at “full production” all during the coming year.

100 years ago

(From the Dec. 8, 1922, issue of the Sequoyah County Democrat) —James G. Perkins, a farmer from near Walnut Ridge, Ark., who was traveling through the country with a wagon and team looking for a location, was shot and instantly killed by Night Policeman Perry Chuculate, in this city near the filling station at the east end of Cherokee Street, about 3:30 Sunday morning.

Perry Chuculate, in making his rounds of the business section, was standing on the sidewalk near the Kelleam building, opposite Gus Warshauers and Co. store at about 3:30 o’clock, when he heard a store door rattle and saw a man apparently come out of the darkened doorway of the Palace Drug store. He started in pursuit in order to see what the man was up to, and as he came near him just before reaching the filling station ordered him to halt, telling him that he was an officer. Perkins increased his speed and reached the brick pillars of the filling station, turned and attempted to draw his pistol. Chuculate told him not to draw his pistol and repeated that he was an officer, but Perkins seemingly having some difficulty in drawing his gun, a 32 Colt with a 5 1/2 -inch barrel, reached both hands back to his right hip pocket. As he did so, Chuculate fired one shot and rushed in to Perkins and wrenched the gun from his hands. As Perkins released the gun he sank to the ground and expired in a few minutes.

Chuculate shot low, but unfortunately the bullet from a 30-30 special police gun severed the large artery in the left thigh, passed through the abdomen and stopped under the skin of the right hip. Perkins lived only about five minutes.

Mr. Perkins had $230 sewed in an extra pocket of his trousers, as a precaution against high jackers and had about $11 in his pocket when killed. He also carried a bank book showing a deposit in Walnut Ridge bank of over nineteen hundred dollars.

The mules and wagon outfit were sold here by his son-inlaw before they started back home with the body.

Mr. Davis, his son-in-law, fully exonerated night policeman Chuculate, as he made an affidavit that the gun taken from him by the officer was Perkins’ gun, and stated that he never went without it, even carrying it to the fields with him while farming.