Two men accused of stealing oilfield equipment in rural Canadian County
Just before 8 p.m. on Sunday, May 11, GPS showed unauthorized movement of two trailers owned by Ovintiv Oil & Gas that had been parked near NW 150th between Alfadale and Radio Road, according to the Canadian County Sheriff's Office.
Edmond Police investigating after truck driver found impaled on rebar
Canadian County investigators confirmed the theft with Ovintiv, who had trail camera photos that showed a silver Chevy Avalanche towing one of the trailers.
The truck and trailer were stopped near NW Expressway and Mustang Road, where investigators reportedly found copper wiring and industrial batteries in the trailer, and burglary tools, a severed hitch lock, suspected marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the truck.
47-year-old Jason Lee Sparkman from Muldrow and 43-year-old James Shawn Freeman from Oklahoma City were arrested in connection to the theft and booked into the Canadian County Detention Center on the following charges:
Grand larceny
Trespassing with intent to commit theft
Possession of burglary tools
Possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia
Malicious injury to property
Conspiracy to commit a felony
Engaging in a pattern of criminal offenses across counties
The Canadian County Sheriff's Office says Sparkman and Freeman both have prior burglary convictions and a history of property and drug offenses.
Sparkman's bond was set at $26,000 and Freeman's bond was set at $20,000.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


San Francisco Chronicle
7 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Husband of missing California mother of four arrested on murder charge
More than a year after the disappearance of 39-year-old Nikki Cheng Saelee-McCain, her husband has been arrested and charged with her murder, Shasta County authorities announced Wednesday. Detectives arrested Tyler McCain and booked him into the county jail on one count of murder. Prosecutors said they will also seek a special circumstance allegation, accusing him of killing his wife — the mother of their four children — to stop her from testifying in a domestic violence case. He is being held without bail. Nikki was last seen on May 18, 2024. Investigators said her phone last connected to the network at her Anderson home that morning, when she was with her husband. Days later, her Chevy Avalanche was found abandoned near the Shasta-Tehama county line. Prosecutors said the vehicle's covered bed contained a strong odor of decomposition and a blood-stained sheet later confirmed to contain Nikki's DNA. According to prosecutors, a confidential informant reported that McCain admitted to killing his wife during a domestic violence incident. In March, detectives — working with the FBI and Homeland Security — reclassified the case as a homicide after searching the couple's home. Nikki's body has not been found, but prosecutors said California law does not require a body to file a murder charge. Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie A. Bridgett said her office will also refile domestic violence charges from 2023 that were previously dismissed. 'The dismissal of the domestic violence case was necessary because we would not have been able to prove the case without her testimony, without also having to prove that Tyler McCain caused Nikki's disappearance,' Bridgett said.

Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Tyngsborough sixth grader rescues 5-year-old boy from stone well: ‘I was just thinking, what can I do?'
With her son 15 feet underground and hanging tightly to a metal pipe, Freeman screamed for help. Advertisement An old well sits on the Freeman family's front yard in Tyngsboro. For decades, the metal covering was on tight, Kathleen Freeman said. But on Aug. 15, rusted metal wiring holding the cover together fell apart, she said. Kathleen Freeman Other than the frenzy around the well, the street along Mascuppic Lake was quiet and deserted. Driveways were empty, and Freeman was worried they were alone, without help. She tried, for a moment, to go inside to get to a phone, but that made the 5-year-old cry harder. 'When my son couldn't see me, he got hysterical,' Freeman said. 'My body knew it had to stay where Jack could see me.' Jack Bissais sits on a carnival ride at the Westford apple blossom festival in May 2025. Kathleen Freeman Within a minute, an 11-year-old neighbor, Juliana Fischer, raced to the pair's rescue. Juliana had been watching 'Rush Hour 3″ with her dad around noon Friday when she heard an adult yell outside — and not in the playful way she's used to hearing from the neighborhood kids. The rising sixth grader ran outside, instinctively calling 911 on her cell phone. She lifted a 12-foot ladder all by herself, carrying it from along the side of the house to the well. Advertisement 'I see Juliana — thank God — running from across the street," Freeman said. 'She's already on the phone with the dispatcher — she did an unbelievable job." 'I was just thinking, 'what can I do? what's going on?,' Juliana said in a phone interview Monday. She told the 911 operator where they were, and answered a few more questions before passing the phone to Freeman. Juliana Fischer, 11, plays soccer in Tyngsboro and is an incoming sixth grade student at Lloyd G. Blanchard Middle School in Westford. Anne Fischer Juliana, who is 5′7″ and a star soccer player, gently lowered the ladder into the well. 'There was definitely that adrenaline, and I picked it up as strong and as fast as I could,' she said. Seconds later, Juliana's father arrived with a rope, and the group instructed Jack to climb slowly up the ladder. 'I am so grateful that Juliana was in the right place at the right time,' said her mother, Anne Fischer. The moment Freeman's son climbed into her arms, she heard sirens as the fire department arrived, she said. Post-rescue, Juliana's mom said she is being extra generous when it comes to her daughter's back-to-school wish list, which includes Converse shoes, Sambas, and a new North Face backpack for her first day of classes at Lloyd G. Blanchard Middle School in Westford. 'She's spoiled anyways, but she's getting a little extra love because of her heroics,' said Fischer, 52. Jack was taken to the emergency room, where medical staff said he was all clear, Freeman said. He just had a few scratches on one arm. 'I was stepping on the top and I fell in,' Jack said, recalling the incident. 'I looked up and saw the sky, I wanted my mama.' Advertisement By Saturday, Jack was in a great mood, his mother said, just in time for a family cookout with ravioli and macaroni from Family Pizza Inc. 'We got very lucky that he went down with his feet first,' Juliana said. Claire Thornton can be reached at


E&E News
7 days ago
- E&E News
Lawsuits over Louisiana's decaying oil infrastructure split GOP
GARDEN ISLAND BAY, Louisiana — Out on the water, the decaying legacy of oil and gas production here is hard to miss. Old well pipes stick up out of the river. The shorelines are dotted with pilings — the skeleton of long-abandoned docks. Narrow canals trenched through the marsh to drill wells have widened into small rivers. The derelict docks and rusted equipment, some here since before World War II, can have a forgotten feel. But on land, they're top of mind in a yearslong legal battle over whether oil majors should be forced to pay billions of dollars for the damage and fund restoration of the state's disappearing coast. Advertisement The sprawling litigation — more than 40 lawsuits — is fueling a fight that reaches from courtrooms in small-town Louisiana to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. Behind the legal maneuvering is a unique alliance between trial lawyers, long cast as the scourge of Republicans everywhere, and Louisiana Republican politicians such as Gov. Jeff Landry, who otherwise pledge allegiance to President Donald Trump's pro-oil agenda. Together, they threaten to cost the industry billions of dollars. But a big victory for that effort earlier this year — a $744 million verdict against Chevron — has triggered a backlash in Trump's push for 'energy dominance.' The Make America Great Again movement, or MAGA, demands allegiance to fossil fuels. And Republicans backing lawsuits against oil companies is considered a betrayal of Trump's agenda. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and MAGA enforcer who drove the ouster of several Trump administration officials she deemed disloyal, has taken an interest. She's attacked Landry on social media as a 'perfect example of a Republican speaking out of both sides of his mouth.' Bill Barr, Trump's former attorney general, bashed the state's Republican attorney general, Liz Murrill, for supporting litigation that he said endangers Trump's agenda. Murrill responded that Barr is 'wrong about the facts and the law.' Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) recorded a social media video outside the White House earlier this year. | Mark Schiefelbein/AP So far, the GOP-trial lawyer alliance has held, but it could face its biggest test yet in the coming Supreme Court term. The court, bolstered by three Trump picks, is threatening an arcane but damaging setback. Those moves have given a national profile to a pitched battle where industry supporters have been sounding the alarm for years. Marc Ehrhardt, executive director of the Grow Louisiana Coalition, calls the litigation a 'shakedown' that sends the wrong message to businesses that might consider investing in Louisiana. 'What we're essentially saying is, 'Come on in, invest in Louisiana, and then in about 20 years or so, we're going to sue the hell out of you,'' Ehrhardt said. His group was formed in 2014, shortly after the suits were filed, he said, 'to advocate and remind people about the importance of the oil and natural gas business to the state's economy and jobs.' The White House, Landry, Loomer, Barr, Chevron and the Department of Energy, did not respond to requests for comment. 'Wanton disregard' But parish governments, environmental groups and some people who make their living in the marshes say it's simply time for the oil companies to repair the mess they left behind after reaping decades of profit. 'I think it's reasonable for some of the companies to come and clean some of this stuff up,' said Richie Blink, a charter tour company owner in Plaquemines Parish, where the jury reached the $744 million verdict against Chevron. His johnboat is idling where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf, and he's looking across a few hundred feet of open water at a barge working the site of an oil spill several weeks before. An 82-year-old well started spraying oil in late April, the latest reminder of how oil field equipment left behind years ago continues to damage the coastal environment. Coincidentally, it happened about three weeks after the Plaquemines verdict. Further upriver, Blink swings his boat into the Mississippi by the skeleton of an old dock sticking out of the marsh grass near a pipeline platform. It's just a row of dark pilings poking a few inches out of the water, where a fisherman's boat could hit it at night or when the river is high and visibility is low. 'This is the kind of stuff, the wanton disregard for the health and safety of residents here,' says Richie Blink, a tour captain. 'You've got docks that hang out into navigable waterways that are derelict. And they'll come slap like a light on top of it instead of taking the time to remove something right.' Tour boat captain Richie Blink points out damage to marshes along the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, related to oil and gas drilling. | Mike Soraghan/POLITICO's E&E News Companies have been drilling for oil here since at least the 1930s, cutting canals into the marsh to sink wells and lay pipelines, building docks and adding other infrastructure. In Louisiana, a little more than 26,500 people worked to produce oil and gas last year, about 1.3 percent of the workforce, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the state ranks third in the country for natural gas production and accounts for about 10 percent of U.S. gas production as well as 1 percent of crude oil production. More broadly, the Grow Louisiana Coalition — which supports the energy industry — says oil and gas support 300,000 jobs in the state, and contributes millions of dollars each year to the state's coastal restoration efforts. 'No private entity cares more or is doing more to restore our coastline than the Louisiana energy industry,' Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, said in an emailed statement. 'It's time to stop incentivizing these lawsuits.' But production appears to have peaked, and the economic significance of the overall oil and gas industry in Louisiana has shrunk over time, according to a recent report from the state's Division of Administration. In 1999, oil, gas and petrochemicals accounted for about one-fourth of Louisiana's GDP. By 2023, the last full year of data available, that had fallen to less than one-fifth. The development came with a cost, and the bills are starting to add up. Canals cut in the marsh for oil wells disrupted the natural flow of water and funneled saltwater into the freshwater ecosystem, scientists say, killing plants that held the soil in place. Erosion widened canals until they were simply open water in some places, Blink calls them 'ghost bayous.' Coastal restoration The state has warned that it lost nearly 2,000 square miles of land since the 1930s and, without mitigation, could lose 3,000 more over the next 50 years. Plaquemines Parish, a jurisdiction that follows the Mississippi out of New Orleans all the way to open water, has been particularly hard hit. Criss-crossed by those canals, it has lost nearly half its land in the past 50 years. It has about half of the active lawsuits. Even people who don't spend much of their time on the water see the effects, Blink said, in homeowners' insurance that can cost tens of thousands of dollars for middle class houses. But oil and gas development isn't the only reason for that loss of land. Scientists and environmentalists blame a variety of factors, including sea-level rise from climate change. In the trial in Plaquemines, Chevron directed blame at the levees along the Mississippi that choke off the sediment in the river that the marsh needs in order to rebuild. 'It's not something that was caused solely by oil and gas. In fact, gas is not even the main factor,' said James Karst, a spokesperson for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, in an interview. 'Clearly the burning of carbon-based fuels is the main cause of sea-level rise and a warming planet, but those are just some of the main factors.' Cleanup operations seek to protect Garden Island Bay, Louisiana, after an oil spill in April. | U.S. Coast Guard The state has a coastal master plan for restoration, approved in 2023, with 77 projects costing roughly $50 billion over the next 50 years. But it's largely unfunded. Settlements and verdicts from the litigation could help trim that backlog. 'Louisiana has a problem funding coastal restoration for the long term,' said Karst, whose organization is not involved in the lawsuits and has no position on whether they should succeed or fail. 'This could be a lifeline for saving Louisiana's coast. It could help the state and the parishes do more projects. That will save more of our state for future generations.' The suits were filed in 2013, led by a Louisiana trial lawyer named John Carmouche, who did not respond to requests for comment. He identified sites along the coast where oil majors like Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron once produced oil, though many have since sold their wells to smaller firms. Then he signed on the governing bodies of coastal parishes — the Louisiana equivalent of counties. That's the legal strategy. But behind the motions and petitions and courtroom maneuvering, there's also political strategy. Forging alliances Rural Louisiana isn't friendly terrain for big lawsuits against oil companies. Many people in the state work for oil companies, or their job is related to the industry. The oil sector is also intertwined with the Republican Party, and in a red state like Louisiana, that means it's intertwined with state government. But in the years after filing the suits, Carmouche and his firm forged a unique alliance with the Republican political leaders who run the state. When David Vitter, then a Republican senator, ran for governor in Louisiana promising to end the litigation, Carmouche and his firm took action. The firm put $1.7 million into a PAC that was the first to hit Vitter for his role in a prostitution scandal. Democrat John Bel Edwards, himself a trial lawyer, beat Vitter with 56 percent of the vote in 2015 to become governor. Vitter did not respond to a request for comment. Landry, Louisiana's current Republican governor, was attorney general at the time. He backed the litigation, hosting a news conference to announce the first settlement in the litigation. Carmouche's firm gave $300,000 to a pro-Landry PAC in his 2023 gubernatorial election victory. During the 2023 campaign, a local news outlet reported that by August of that year, Landry had raised more from trial lawyers than Edwards had during his 2019 campaign. Last year, Landry gave Carmouche a plum appointment to the Louisiana State University board of supervisors. Carmouche and his firm also contributed more than $4,000 to Michael Clement, the judge who heard the case in Plaquemines Parish. Judges run for election in the parishes that would get the millions of dollars in coastal restoration dollars. Those kinds of local connections are among the reasons why state courts are viewed as more likely to deliver big jury awards against oil companies. The Supreme Court in Washington. | Francis Chung/POLITICO The oil companies and their supporters want the cases moved to federal court, where judges are chosen by the president and senators and considered more friendly to the oil companies. Federal jurists have their own conflicts, though. After the BP oil spill, numerous accounts flagged that many federal jurists in gulf states had oil and gas stock. The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals meets in New Orleans and handles cases from the country's biggest oil producing states, including Texas. A review of the most recent financial disclosures by POLITICO's E&E News shows that among the 26 5th Circuit jurists, at least nine hold oil and gas interests. Still, the 5th Circuit has issued rulings favorable to the trial lawyers and the coastal parishes. Justices have repeatedly rejected industry's attempt to move the cases to federal courts. A representative of the 5th Circuit did not respond to a request for comment. The Supreme Court agreed. In 2023, justices declined to entertain a request to move the cases to federal court. In June, that changed. The high court agreed to hear the oil companies' argument that some cases should be handled in federal court because companies produced oil under contract to the federal government in World War II. 'Ceded control' In theory, the Supreme Court decision could go either way. The high court takes up only a fraction of thousands of cases it's asked to review each year. But Keith Hall, a Louisiana State University law professor who has followed the cases, said the court might be considering a change. 'I always assume there's a good chance of reversal if they take a case,' said Hall, a former litigator. However the justices eventually rule, their decision to reconsider the question likely puts all the cases on hold for months. The April verdict was under fire at the national level before the Supreme Court announced it was taking the case. Barr led the charge. He fired off his letter to Murrill, the Louisiana attorney general, less than a week after the state and local governments' big victory in state court. Barr, the former U.S. attorney general, is in charge of leading legal challenges for the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce, which touts itself as a more conservative and aggressive alternative to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He wrote on behalf of that group and several others, including ones with ties to Energy Secretary Chris Wright and billionaire Trump megadonor Tim Dunn. Barr accused Louisiana Republicans of giving the state's imprimatur to the trial lawyers' attack on oil companies. 'The state seems to have largely ceded control of the litigation to the private plaintiffs' lawyers and deferred to their legal positions,' Barr wrote. Things got hotter in July, when Loomer blasted Landry and Murrill on social media. She said that voicing support for the oil industry while supporting the suits is 'blatant duplicity.' 'They weaken the same energy sector they claim to defend while they support lawsuits against American energy companies,' Loomer wrote. 'Hopefully @realDonaldTrump calls Landry out for subverting his energy agenda. This is ridiculous.' Right-wing activist Laura Loomer speaks in front of a courthouse in New York last year. | Ted Shaffrey/AP Loomer hasn't followed up. But the Grow Louisiana Coalition did, with an opinion piece in the Washington Examiner about litigation issues noting Loomer's outrage. Murrill responded with a statement saying she's a staunch defender of the oil and gas industry. But, she said, the Chevron lawsuit showed the company 'caused real damage' and engaged in 'concrete, identifiable unlawful activity.' Blink, the tour captain, was an elected member of the Plaquemines Parish Council for four years. In the years before he ran for the office another council member, he said, was voted out for having supported the lawsuits. But the controversy had quieted by the time Blink ran. After four years, he chose not to run for reelection. He said he talked to more than 1,000 people in his 2018 campaign and 'maybe 10' asked about the lawsuits. But what they did talk about, he said, was anger at the damage to the marshes and the river. 'Everything in Plaquemines Parish centers around the Mississippi River, and it's a vulnerable spot, and people know it,' Blink said. 'They know it's not getting any better unless somebody's working on getting some things done.'