SEQUOYAH COUNTY (KFSM) — A Muldrow man accused of murdering a Sallisaw man in 1997 was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday (August 12), according to the Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Office.
Ricky Dority was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the murder of Mitchell Nixon, Sheriff Ron Lockhart said.
Dority was already at the Bureau of Federal Prisons facility in Texarkana following a conviction on a weapons charge, according to the sheriff’s office. Dority was charged with murder in August 2014.
Nixon was killed in October 1997, and his body was found on Tower Estates Road east of Sallisaw, according to Lockhart. The state medical examiner determined he was beaten to death. His truck was found abandoned at a nearby Walmart later that day. The case was investigated by the Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Office and Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations.
Lockhart released the following statement:
“This was the first cold case I reopened after being elected sheriff. I would like to thank all the investigators that worked on this case and a special thanks to the district attorney’s office. This was a hard case to investigate because several of the witnesses had deceased. I am so glad that we reopened the investigation three years ago because the Nixon family needed closure. We have other cold case murders that we are currently looking at. I am so proud of every employee of the sheriff’s department.”
Another man, Rex Robbins, was arrested in March, 2013 in connection with the Nixon’s murder and is still awaiting trial, according to the sheriff’s office. A third suspect in the case, Bobby Scott, is dead, the sheriff’s office said.
