Residents tell me Johanna Woods mobile home community is a quiet property with 235 homes. Only five lots are vacant, the property manager says. According to several people living in the neighborhood, management does background checks and keeps a close eye on residents, yet this morning, the unthinkable happened: a neighbor struggles with a possible intruder. A call comes in to 9-1-1, alerting law enforcement that a fight was happening in front of one of the mobile homes.
Units arrive within minutes, but by then, there’s one gun, and two victims.
The homeowner has been shot in the chest, and is in critical condition at St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, and the other man is dead.
Donald Metzer also lives on Kansas Street. He tells me he’s part of an active Neighborhood Watch group, started about three years ago, and knows his neighbor [Randy Bryant] three doors down.
“We’ve talked here, several times,” says Metzer, “and the man is always riding [his bicycle] with his son, up and down the street here.”
Another community resident, Ben Gibson, says he also keeps an eye on things, and tells me his child has played with his neighbor’s [Bryant's] son.
“I was a police officer for about six years,” Gibson explains, “and I’m usually real careful about where my kids go to play, and things like that, so to come out and see this this morning was kind of a shock.”
And shock is what many other neighbors tell me they’re feeling.
We have also learned that McKnight, the man who died, did live in the same community on another street in the development, but since he was on Bryant’s property, police say it appears to be a case of self-defense, and don’t expect any charges to be filed against Bryant.
Police are still looking into who owned the gun, but say that may not be a critical factor in the case since McKnight was on Bryant’s property.
