A former Oklahoma police officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 2014 killing of his daughter's boyfriend after using department records to run a background search on him.
Shannon Kepler, 61, a citizen of the Muscogee Nation, will likely spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of Jeremey Lake, who was 19 years old when Kepler killed him on the tribe's reservation.
Kepler was found guilty in federal court last April after four previous trials in state court failed to land the veteran cop in prison. He was also ordered to pay restitution to cover the cost of a headstone for Lake.
Kepler's first three murder trials ended with hung juries.
He was convicted of manslaughter in the fourth trial and given a 15-year prison term, but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned that conviction based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found that Oklahoma lacks jurisdiction for crimes that happen on tribal reservations in which the defendants or victims are tribal citizens.
'Kepler, at the time, was sworn to uphold the law but instead made a series of decisions that led to the young man's murder,' U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson said after Friday's sentencing.
'Today's 25-year sentence provides a measure of justice to Mr. Lake's family, though I know their healing continues.'
Former Tulsa Police Officer Shannon Kepler (right) leaves court at the Tulsa Federal Building during his fifth trial in the killing of his daughter's boyfriend Jeremey Lake on Monday, April 19, 2021 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Kepler, convicted of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Lake in 2014, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison last Friday
Jeremy Lake, 19, at the time of his murder in 2014, was once the victim of child abuse at a very young age and was previously charged as a juvenile after pushing a social services worker
Lisa Kepler, 18, was dropped off at a homeless shelter without any money, clothes or phone shortly after her 18th birthday. She met Lake at the shelter
In 2014, Kepler and his wife, Gina, were 'having a difficult time' with their adopted daughter, Lisa, and left her at a homeless shelter shortly after her 18th birthday without any essential possessions, including money, cell phone, credit cards or clothes other than what she wore, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
Kepler was then 'alarmed' days later when he managed to gain access to his daughter's Facebook account and saw that she had changed her relationship status from being single to 'being in a relationship' with Lake, whom she met at the shelter where he was working as a volunteer.
While still active on the Tulsa Police Department, Kepler requested a records clerk to search police databases to gather information on Lake before printing out police records about him. He learned that Lake was the victim of child abuse at a very young age and was
