Prison bars with keys
By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A 67-year-old man, who said he would get in a shoot-out with law enforcement if they came to his Yale home, has been given a two-year prison term followed by eight years of probation — with an order to have a mental health evaluation and follow its recommendations for pointing a gun at a woman he described in court as “my sweetheart.”
John McHarold Higgins, who was shot when officers saw him with a gun, was given concurrent sentences of one year in jail for dragging the woman by her hair and six months in jail for threatening to kill a dialysis patient, who lived in the couple’s home where Higgins’ girlfriend was his caregiver.
Higgins, who has been jailed on $200,000 bail for the past four months, was sentenced in accordance with a plea agreement with the prosecution by District Judge Phillip Corley, who accepted his guilty pleas to all counts last week.
After Yale police received a 911 open line call at 10:09 am on April 6, a dispatcher called back and talked to a woman who said Higgins “had just pointed a gun at her head and said he was going to kill her and then himself.
“She went on to say Higgins had a hold of her by her hair, but she was able to free herself from his hold and ran away from him,” Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Agent Lynda Stevens wrote in an affidavit.
When Yale Police Officer Ken Moore contacted Higgins’ girlfriend across the street from the house, she said Higgins had a gun and was suicidal inside the residence with his elderly mother, the affidavit said.
“Higgins indicated to the officer he wasn’t going to leave his residence alive and if law enforcement came to his residence, he would get into a shoot-out with them,” the affidavit said. Higgins said that he was not going back to prison, the affidavit said.
When the Payne County Multi-Jurisdictional Special Operations Team responded, “Higgins confirmed his elderly mother was inside the house and that he did not want his mother harmed,” the affidavit said. At 12:02 pm, Higgins’ mother left the house, unharmed and safe, the affidavit sad.
“Law enforcement ran a criminal check on Higgins and learned he had a multi-state criminal history,” including a felony conviction for aggravated assault in Harris County, Texas, in 1992, court records show.
At 2:49 pm, after futile negotiations, when Higgins came to a door, “officers observed Higgins with a gun, and a member of the Special Operations Team shot Higgins,” who was arrested and given medical care before being transported to a Tulsa hospital, the affidavit said.
Higgins had a .22 caliber pistol in his jeans pocket and a second handgun in the entryway of his house, just a few feet from the door, the affidavit said.
