The triple-murder trial of Stacy Lee Drake, the Alabama felon accused of the June 2024 murders of Tara Underwood and Taylor Sharp at LaFerry’s Propane near Gans as well as the El Reno slaying of Phillip Emerson, began Monday afternoon in District Judge Jeffrey Payton’s courtroom in the Sequoyah County Courthouse.
Drake, 51, who is alleged to have terrorized residents in three states during a fiveweek crime spree that began with the May 14, 2024, homicide of a 62-year-old man in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and reached its zenith with the three Oklahoma murders before ending on June 20, 2024, with his capture in Arkansas following a massive two-day manhunt, has been held for the past 14½ months in the Sequoyah County Jail awaiting trial on capital murder charges.
Drake was charged on June 21, 2024, in the deaths of Underwood and Sharp. He was then charged on August 7, 2024, in Emerson’s death in Sequoyah County rather than Canadian County where El Reno is located in order to demonstrate a pattern of criminal offenses…