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Left: Lucas Anthony Walker (KOTV). Right: Deborah and Larry Dutton (Livingston Funeral Home).
An Oklahoma man was sentenced for killing his girlfriend’s grandparents and burying their bodies in their own backyard.
Lucas Anthony Walker, 22, was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison for the murders of Deborah and Larry Dutton, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a Friday press release. Walker pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder.
The victims were murdered in their home in Dewey, about 50 miles north of Tulsa, on Dec. 19, 2022.
Their bodies were found the following month in their backyard, reported Andy Dossett of the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise.
Ring doorbell video showed Walker and Heidi Dutton dragging the bodies to the backyard, reported local NBC affiliate KSNW, citing court documents.
Walker’s then-girlfriend, Heidi Dutton, who was 17 at the time, told police she asked Walker to murder the couple, who adopted her as their daughter, “because she wanted them dead,” Dossett reported, citing police affidavits and preliminary hearing testimony.
“We kill them,” Heidi Dutton said she told her boyfriend during an interview with police, the newspaper reported.
She initially admitted to investigators that she killed her grandparents and that Walker helped her clean up, but later reversed her and Walker’s roles.
Walker confessed to shooting and stabbing Deborah Dutton and stabbing Larry Dutton to death, officials said.
The two reportedly spent the elder Duttons’ money before their arrests.
An obituary said Larry Dutton was a retired Master Staff Sgt. in the U.S. Air Force and former manager of the Lt. William M. Milliken Airport in Eureka, Kansas.
His wife was originally from Tennessee, a retired Staff Sgt. in the U.S. Air Force, and a former chef.
They were former churchgoers in Kansas. Congregants at their former church, Eureka United Methodist, were shocked.
“They’re shaken. They’re visibly shaken,” Rev. Linda Pope told KOKI. “How do we make sense of all of this, and how do we turn this over to a higher power? There, there’s just so many unanswered questions.”
Heidi Dutton’s plea and sentencing hearing is set for March 5, online court records show.