Inset: Bradley Frye (Pottawatomie County Jail). Background: The street in Pottawatomie County where Frye killed his wife (Google Maps).
An Oklahoma man, aged 32, has received a life sentence for the murder of his wife, whom he shot in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun amidst an argument, later attempting to disguise the incident as a suicide. Pottawatomie County District Judge John G. Canavan sentenced Bradley Frye to life imprisonment for the 2024 murder of Sara Frye, according to court records.
Canavan handed down the sentence after Frye pleaded guilty in May to one count of second-degree murder.
On the evening of September 13, 2024, as reported by Law&Crime, Frye rushed to a neighbor’s residence shortly after 9:30 p.m., claiming his wife had shot herself at their home located in the 400 block of E. Beech Street in Tecumseh, just outside Oklahoma City.
“When the officers arrived, the scene looked like everything other than suicide,” Tecumseh police Chief JR Kidney told local NBC affiliate KFOR.
Authorities noted signs of a violent altercation within the home. The kitchen table was broken as if it had been forcefully moved, and various other items were found shattered throughout the house, as detailed in a probable cause affidavit.
Bradley Frye presented conflicting accounts of his wife’s death. Initially, he asserted he witnessed his wife shoot herself with the shotgun. Yet, before undergoing a gunshot residue test on his hands, he altered his narrative, suggesting a struggle over the weapon ended with it discharging fatally.
“Immediately our officers notified our investigator who came to the scene and agreed that this did not look like a suicide,” Kidney told KFOR.
While emergency services attended to his wife, Bradley Frye was observed outside in a state of distress, desperately speaking with law enforcement, as reported by Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV.
“I got to go in there, bro!” he was reportedly heard saying. “I got to go in there! It’s my wife! She’s laying in there man!”
Cops recovered her journal, which said she was planning on leaving her husband because he was “treating her poorly,” per the affidavit.
Detectives also spoke with Sara Frye’s father, who described the marital problems between her and Bradley Frye.
The domestic situation was sufficiently dire that the Frye children had been removed from the household for their protection, according to the affidavit. Sara Frye’s father intended to stay overnight to mitigate tension but felt it was safe to leave for errands as his son-in-law seemed calmer. Tragically, upon his return, he found the area surrounded by police responding to the shooting incident.
Investigators also noted that the gun was found behind Sara Frye’s body and her husband had packed the wound on her face with petroleum jelly. Investigators took him to the police station, where he declined to make a statement and asked for a lawyer.
KFOR’s video from the crime scene shows the home had a sign with a picture of a gun that said “WARNING Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.”
Police said Bradley Frye was drinking on the night he killed his wife and neighbors heard the couple fighting just minutes before the shooting.
