The Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Department has made an arrest in a 1997 cold case murder.
Rex Robbins, 38, was arrested on a charge of first degree murder Wednesday morning (March 6) for the murder of Mitchell Nixon, according to Sheriff Ron Lockhart.
“It's like pure hell going through something like this,” said Sharon Rogers, Nixon’s mother. “For so long I have felt lots of anger,” she said.
Nixon, 28, was killed on Oct. 9, 1997. His body was found on Tower Estates Road, east of Sallisaw. The state medical examiner determined he’d been beaten to death, according to a report from the Sequoyah County Times.
“I expected it to happen sooner or later,” said Rogers. “I didn't expect it to happen this late in the game, but I guess there's a reason for all things.”
Two years ago Sheriff Lockhart and his investigators reopened the case.
“Somebody knows something and it takes a fresh set of eyes to go over it and look at it and see what’s happened with it,” he said.
Robbins had been interviewed several times.
“He was the nucleus of the investigation I might say,” Lockhart said. “He was the one that was still here.”
Rogers thinks of her son constantly. She feels better knowing investigators have someone behind bars.
“He's had freedom for all these years and now he's gonna have to pay for up what he's done even if it means you know being sent back to his maker,” Rogers said.
Records show Robbins has been arrested several times over the last few years on burglary, drug, assault and other charges.
The arrest stems from a joint investigation between the 27th District Attorney’s Office and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
More arrests are expected, Lockhart said.
The sheriff says there are about nine unsolved murders in the county.
“That’s really bad and there’s so many of them out there,” he said. “This one here’s caught, that’s good, but there’s so many more that need to be caught.”
