The Bryan County Jail
How bad is the Bryan County Jail, in Durant, Oklahoma?
So bad that the FBI has investigated it, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has investigated it, the U.S. Marshal’s Service has investigated it, the state Health Department has investigated and levied fines against it and the state of Oklahoma is considering ordering it closed.
In July, 2004 Bryan County Commissioners created the Bryan County Jail Authority and took control of the jail from the Sheriff. Since that time jail operations have become so bad that no one wants to be there, including the administrators, the jailers and certainly not the inmates, who escape pretty much when they feel like it.
2006 was a banner year for jail escapes in Bryan County, with at least 15 prisoners, including murderers, rapists and robbers fleeing the jail on a regular basis. 2005 wasn’t a lot better, when at least 6 inmates escaped.
While the prisoners were leaving the jail in record numbers, so were the jailers and administrators. Several jailers were fired for a variety of failures including sleeping on the job while inmates escaped, being drunk and holding an ‘open house’ in which two females were smuggled into the jail, smuggling drugs into the jail, not paying attention as inmates waltzed out of the jail and one jailer was fired for having sex with an inmate.
Other jailers simply resigned in disgust over the low pay; jailers receive only $950 per-month while other county employees receive $1,940, lack of support, lack of security and arguably the lack of everything including leadership required to maintain and operate a jail.
Jail administrators don’t far much better often resigning within only a few months of being hired and usually in the wake of yet another escape. And who can blame them in a county where it is estimated to require at least $350,000 to operate a single jail, the Bryan County Jail Authority operates two separate jails, the main jail and an auxiliary jail, both of which must be staffed.
For the 2005-2006 fiscal year Bryan County officials allocated only $150,000 to run the two jails. For the 2006-2007 fiscal year, they did slightly better, allocating $250,000. However the current estimated cost to operate the two jails is $57,000 per-month, for a total of $684,000 per-year.
2007 doesn’t promise to be any better for the Bryan County Jail Trust Authority which asked County Commissioners for a $1 million dollar jail budget for the 2006-2007 fiscal year. They received only a quarter of that amount and the money is expected to be gone by the end of February.
One can only speculate on how many Bryan County prisoners will also be ‘gone’, having escaped by the end of February.
Commentary and Opinion
Sometimes it’s best to simply give up and cut one’s losses. Such is the case with the ill-fated, under-funded and under-staffed Bryan County Jail.
The state of Oklahoma should order the jail shut down, the Bryan County Jail Trust Authority dissolved and require Bryan County to contract with either another county’s jail or a private prison to hold Bryan County prisoners.
It’s the sane thing to do, as it’s obvious that Bryan County lacks the ability to fund or operate a county jail and various law enforcement agencies around the state and nation are getting tired of chasing down escaped Bryan County inmates, one of which was located in Florida while another was located in Las Vegas.
Why not talk about the multiple deaths that have been caused by the renegade Sapulpa Police Department? How about Creek County’s District Attorney Max Cook and his child molesting investigator who was not fired or even suspended until a public outcry was fronted in the Sapulpa Daily Herald.
This information can be easily researched in the Herald archives and confirmed by several people. It’s just the tip of the iceberg for corruption in Creek County and Sapulpa.
One of those jail walk-outs in Durant was Bobby Don Mullinix, and he killed Tristan York within about nine hours of leaving the jail. Bobby had help. Charles Bussey participated in Tristan’s murder. That happened in May of 2007. Then in December of 2007 my grandson, Faron Wright, was shot to death just a few days before his court date as a prosecution witness. Faron had witnessed the Tristan York murder, and that’s what his role as a prosecution witness was about. Faron also knew about interstate drug trafficking.
The one who killed Faron was named: Tres Church Tinsley, a Texan. That sure looks like a murder for two good reasons:
1. The aggravated homicide of a prosecution witness (in Durant, of course).
2. Faron’s daughter was in the house when and where the shooting took place.
Mullinix is now at Holdenville, for life, and Bussey is at Lawton, also for life. So where is Tinsley incarcerated? He isn’t! Emily Redman, the District Attorney, turned him loose on the very day he killed Faron. She treated it as a case of “self-defense,” i.e., she evoked the castle law. Never mind that Oklahoma Statute 1289.25 takes exception to children or grandchildren present (sub-part C.2.). It looks like Faron’s daughter was the bait that lured him to his death.
What the public doesn’t know is that Bussey, York and all the others in his group (including Faron) moved methamphetamine from McKinney Texas to the Durant area less than 24 hours before York was murdered. This isn’t hearsay because it’s all recorded in the sworn testimonies of the Bussey and Mullinix trial preliminaries. What is hearsay (but is probably true) is that the drug deal in McKinney was with Mexicans. And here is an interesting pair of facts: Bobby Don Mullinix calls Bells Texas his home town. Last June Tres Church Tinsley married a girl from Whitewright Texas. Bells and Whitewright are about seven miles apart. Could there be a connection?
It isn’t just the jail in Durant. Look at the Calvin Sterling incident, and you will see more of this kind of thing.
Added for whoever moderates: I can document all of this and much more. Tinsley has a criminal record in Texas, which was ignored by the Durant police. Prior provocations including stalking (by Tinsley) were also ignored. He zeroed in on Faron for about two weeks before actually killing him. The parentage of the daughter is not in question. The family never doubted that she was Faron’s based on facial features, but we also have DNA information (for 99.998% confidence) based on sixteen point profiling. I have accepted my grandson’s death and the fact that nothing will be done about it, but that still leaves the questions that ought to concern Oklahomans: Just how much is the Durant system mixed up in all of the drug trafficking? Are they in fact part of it? What does it mean when a prosecutor doesn’t charge the one who killed her own witness? This incident has been thoroughly covered up by local newspapers and other media. Why?
JRW (retired, now living in Cotter Arkansas)
my son has been in jail for 4 months he has mental problems want even take him to see a counsler get him on his medicine they don’t feed them enough to fill them up and letting them take cold shower in this frezzing wheater they might of done wrong but there not dogs ive talk to alot of people and found out my son shouldnt even be in there because of his mental problems hes by poliar and has a majior mood disorder took the papper to his lawyer she wouldn’t even try to help theres a few people i know that can walk in that places and get right back out ive been told by the social security offices he would never make it in prison and they give him five years he all so has chronic nadik episode