A 32-year-old Oklahoma man will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his wife by shooting her in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun while they were arguing and then staging the scene to make it appear as if she committed suicide.
Court records show that Pottawatomie County District Judge John G. Canavan sentenced Bradley Frye to life in a state prison on Wednesday for the murder of Sara Frye in 2024.
Canavan imposed the sentence after Frye pleaded guilty in May to one count of second-degree murder.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, Frye rushed to his neighbor’s house shortly after 9:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, to inform them that his wife had shot herself at their home in the 400 block of E. Beech Street in Tecumseh, an Oklahoma City suburb.
“When the officers arrived, the scene looked like everything other than suicide,” Tecumseh police Chief JR Kidney told local NBC affiliate KFOR.
For starters, there appeared to be a fight at the house, according to police. A kitchen table was broken in half, as if someone had thrown it. Other broken items were also found throughout the house, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Bradley Frye also concocted at least two stories about his wife’s death. First, he claimed he walked into a room and saw his wife pull the shotgun trigger. However, as investigators prepared to test him for gunshot residue on his hands, he changed his story, claiming that he and his wife were fighting over the shotgun when it went off, killing her.
“Immediately our officers notified our investigator who came to the scene and agreed that this did not look like a suicide,” Kidney was quoted by KFOR.
Bradley Frye was outside frantically pleading with officers while emergency medical personnel were saving his wife’s life, according to Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV.
“I’ve got to go in there, bro!” he was reported to say. “I got to go inside! It’s my wife. “She’s lying in there, man!”
According to the affidavit, cops found her journal, in which she stated that she intended to leave her husband because he was “treating her poorly.”
Detectives also spoke with Sara Frye’s father, who described her marital problems with Bradley Frye.
According to the affidavit, the couple’s relationship had deteriorated to the point where the Frye children were removed from the home for their own safety. Sara Frye’s father stated that he intended to stay at the house that night to defuse the situation.
Later that evening, he said he felt his son-in-law had calmed down enough to leave to get flea medicine for the dog and eat at Taco Bell. Unfortunately, when he returned home a short time later, he found the area swarming with law enforcement officers responding to the shooting.
Investigators also discovered the gun behind Sara Frye’s body, and her husband used petroleum jelly to pack the wound on her face. Investigators took him to the police station, where he declined to give a statement and requested a lawyer.
According to KFOR’s video from the crime scene, the home had a sign with a picture of a gun that read “WARNING: Trespassers will be shot.” “Survivors will be shot again.”
Police said Bradley Frye was drinking the night he killed his wife, and neighbors heard the couple fighting just minutes before the shooting.
