Kevin Sweat is a killer from Oklahoma who was convicted of the murders of his fiancee and two young girls
According to court documents the bodies of Skyla Whitaker, 11, and Taylor Paschal-Placker, 13, were found in a ditch, both had been shot multiple times. The double murders would go unsolved for four years
Kevin Sweat would be arrested in 2011 and was questioned regarding the death of his fiancee Ashley Taylor, 23, who had her throat slit and her remains were set on fire. Apparently Sweat had confessed to the murders of Skyla Whitaker and Taylor Paschal-Placker and told Ashley he would murder her if she ever left him
Kevin Sweat would be charged with all three murders and then surprisingly plead guilty to all three murders. Sweat would be sentenced to three life sentences without parole
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Gender: Male
Race: American Indian
Height: 5 ft 11 in
Weight: 161 lbs
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Green
Alias: Keven J. Sweat
Alias: Kevin Sweat
OK DOC#: 701563
Birth Date: 1/27/1986
Current Facility: OKLAHOMA STATE PENITENTIARY, MCALE
Reception Date: 11/12/2014
Kevin Sweat Case
For years, the heart-breaking fatal shooting of two girls alongside a country road near Weleetka in 2008 looked to be a random deal.
Finally, in 2011, a suspect, Kevin Joe Sweat, was identified. Under questioning, he would admit to the shooting but claim he mistook the girls for “monsters.”
On Thursday, Sweat, 28, calmly pleaded guilty to murdering the girls in 2008 after prosecutors came up with new evidence that he actually acted out of revenge.
Kevin Sweat also pleaded guilty to murdering his fiancee in July 2011. He will be sentenced later.
He had one condition Thursday — he wanted to talk to the FBI.
His plea came as a surprise. His murder trial over all three deaths had been set to begin Monday.
The newly discovered evidence was “a critical factor” in Sweat’s decision to plead guilty, one of his court-appointed attorneys said afterward.
“He wanted to spare the families of everyone involved, including his own, the ordeal of going through a trial,” the defense attorney, Gretchen Mosley, also said.
Okfuskee County District Judge Lawrence Parish will decide his punishment later. Sweat, of Henryetta, faces life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole on each of the three first-degree murder counts.
At the sentencing, defense attorneys plan to ask the judge to consider evidence Sweat is autistic. Prosecutors will put on impact statements from the victims’ families.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty but dropped that request early in July. In exchange, Sweat agreed to let the judge — rather than a jury — decide if he was guilty.
Kevin Sweat has corresponded with an Oklahoma City television station about wanting to talk to the FBI. The station reported he claims he has evidence that will lead to “federal indictments.”
His defense attorney said she is not really sure why Sweat wants to talk to FBI agents. “They have agreed to talk to him,” Mosley said. “He will be meeting with them, and we will be present.”
The fatal shooting on June 8, 2008, of the two girls, friends Skyla Whitaker, 11, and Taylor Paschal-Placker, 13, attracted national attention because of its strangeness.
Skyla had come over for a sleepover the night before at Taylor’s house on County Line Road, about seven miles northeast of Weleetka.
About 5 p.m., the two girls left to go for a walk to Bad Creek bridge, about one-half mile north of the house. At 5:30 p.m., Taylor’s grandfather, Peter Placker, found the girls’ bullet-riddled bodies. His wife frantically called 911.
The girls were shot 13 times.
Prosecutors on Wednesday revealed in court documents they had newly discovered evidence that Sweat blamed the Placker family for his brother’s death.
His brother, Brian Sweat, died of a drug overdose in 2007 at a Henryetta motel, records show.
Prosecutors said two women who worked with Sweat at a Subway restaurant in Henryetta remembers he blamed the Placker family for his brother’s death.
One former co-worker, Amanda Hamm, recalled he felt like his brother died because the Placker family had sold him bad drugs, prosecutors said in court documents.
Prosecutors said they would call at trial a drug dealer, Christopher Placker, the son of Peter Placker. They said Christopher Placker would testify that he sold drugs in Henryetta in 2007 to people associated with Brian Sweat.
“Christopher was selling approximately $150 to $250 … worth of drugs a day,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said the newly discovered evidence surfaced Sunday.
The girls’ deaths remained unsolved until Sweat was questioned about his missing fiancee, Ashley Taylor, 23. He would admit to an agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation that he cut her throat in July 2011. Her charred remains were found in a burn pile in August 2011 at his father’s property near Weleetka.
He told investigators his fiancee had threatened to tell police he killed the girls near Weleetka if he ever left her.
In a handwritten statement filed Thursday, Sweat stipulated the admissions he made about the three killings to the OSBI agent in 2011 and the witnesses and exhibits endorsed by prosecutors “prove guilt
