The Muskogee County District Attorney is frustrated because he says a woman he charged with assault, was set free and now, she’s accused of stabbing her mother to death.
District Attorney Larry Edwards says he had to dismiss the assault charges because of the US Supreme Court ruling on tribal jurisdiction. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says Tracy Mannon stabbed her mother to death in Wilburton last month and planned to chop up her body and put her into a tote bag.
Court Records show Tracy Mannon was charged last spring in Muskogee County with strangling her teenage daughter with a rope.
However, since Mannon is a tribal member, The Muskogee County District Attorney's Office had to dismiss the case. He says it would be up to tribal court or the federal prosecutors to pick up the case, but no charges were filed by either.
"Often times see that justice is not served is because cases are dismissed and as far as we can tell sometimes nothing happens to them and then sometimes we see terrible things in the after effect," said Edwards.
Less than a year later, Mannon was arrested, accused of using two different knives to stab her mother in their home in Wilburton.
Police arrested her as she was washing off one of the knives at the kitchen sink.
Edwards says if Mannon was charged with last spring’s assault, maybe her mother would still be alive.
"On a domestic case we would have clearly I'm not saying she would have gone to prison but if she would have given probation, we would have give her certain things to try to correct whatever was wrong whether that be psychological training, mental health training, anger management or everything else," said Edwards.
Mannon is now charged with second-degree murder in federal court.
News On 6 called the US Attorney's Office and asked why Mannon wasn’t charged with last spring’s assault and they re-directed questions to the Muscogee Creek Nation Tribal court. A message was left for the Muscogee Tribal Court a message but they have not replied.