UPDATE -- The victim in Monday morning's homicide has been identified as 53-year-old Mark Miller of Tulsa. The suspect has been identified as 41-year-old Joe Edward Nevels.
Miller was trying to thwart a burlary next door to his townhouse was shot and killed by Nevels Monday morning. It happened around 10:00 a.m. at the Kendalwood Park Town Homes at the intersetion of 46th Street and South Granite Avenue.
Karen Heck has lived at Kendalwood Park town homes for almost two years.
“Everybody tries to help everybody and look after each other,” she told FOX23.
She believes her neighbor, Mark Miller, tried to thwart a burglary.
“I don't know if I would have had the guts or the balls to do it honestly,” Heck said.
Heck says she and Miller were talking about what to do moments before he was shot. They were wondering if someone was still inside the town house.
“He walked to the edge, and he saw something and pointed down and he ran off.”
That's when she walked back to get a phone.
“Once I was heading to my house I heard the gunshot, one gunshot, and I called 911 again, cause I knew Mark was running somewhere.”
Tulsa Police officers say he was dead when they arrived.
“The best thing to do in a situation like this is to let them go. because this is the outcome in a lot of situations,” TPD’s Jason Willingham said.
It’s an outcome that has left Kendalwood residents like Heck with a lot of questions.
“There was no need to do this. Why first of all break into someone's place and take something that belongs to someone else, and why did you have to shoot him, and why'd you have to kill him?” Heck asked.
Nevels was able to flee the scene on foot, but was arrested near the Best Buy on Skelly Drive near Interstate 44. He had to be tased by police before surendering.Nevels was to the hospital for medical treatment for lacerations to his neck. Upon being released the suspect will be booked into the Tulsa County Jail.
