Latimer County Resident Sentenced To Over 22 Years For 2024 Tuskahoma Murder

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA - The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Willard Leroy Robbins, Jr., a/k/a Bub, age 41, of Wilburton, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 274 months in prison for one count of Murder in Indian Country-Second Degree.

The charge arose from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Latimer County Sheriff's Office, and the Choctaw Nation Lighthorse Police.

On May 27, 2025, Robbins pleaded guilty in federal district court to the charge. As part of the plea, Robbins admitted to shooting the victim with a 12-gauge shotgun and setting fire to the residence.

According to investigators, on the evening of April 10, 2024, County dispatchers received a call about a man armed with a long-barreled firearm walking along Highway 2. A Choctaw Lighthorse officer responding to dispatch encountered Robbins, intoxicated and walking along the roadside. As the officer was placing Robbins under arrest for public intoxication, dispatchers received a second emergency call directing them to a residence nearby in Tuskahoma. Lighthorse officers and Latimer County deputies arriving on the scene found the residence on fire. Once the flames were extinguished, law enforcement found the victim inside, deceased from an apparent gunshot. Investigators processing the crime scene discovered two Remington-branded 12-gauge shotgun shells that matched a box of shells found in Robbins' possession, and a boot print that matched the boots Robbins was wearing at the time of his arrest. Witnesses also reported seeing Robbins in possession of a 12-gauge shotgun prior to the fire.

The crime occurred in Latimer County, within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable Ronald A. White, Senior Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearing. Robbins will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edith A. Singer represented the United States.