An Oklahoma newspaper in McCurtain County has released a recording that appears to capture Sheriff Kevin Clardy, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff's investigator Alicia Manning, and three other local officials in a very controversial conversation. The Oklahoman has a transcript of the recording released by the McCurtain Gazette-News, though the larger paper notes that it has not independently verified the audio. It starts with the group discussing a fire that killed a woman after she ran back in to save her dogs, per the Hill. Things get disturbing quickly, with graphic jokes made about barbecue. Then the conversation takes a few more disturbing turns.
First up: lynching, which Jennings allegedly seems to wax nostalgic for: "If it was back in the day, when that when Alan Marshton would take a damn Black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for f---ing sheriff," he opines, before Clardy allegedly says, "Yeah. Well, It’s not like that no more." Jennings allegedly responds, "I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got." Next up: the idea of hiring a hitman, with mention made of the very Gazette-News reporter who eventually broke the story with the leaked audio.
"If a hair on his wife’s head, Chris Willingham’s head, or any of those people that really were behind that, if any hair on their head got touched by anybody, who would be the bad guy?" Manning allegedly muses, with Clardy allegedly repeating, "Who would be blamed for it?" Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt is calling for Clardy, Jennings, Manning, and jail administrator Larry Hendrix, who is also allegedly heard on the recording, to resign, the Journal Record reports. "There is no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma," he says. (More Oklahoma stories.)
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