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Presented by benandsteve.com By: Benjamin Groff II©

On a dark, silent night in 1980, the highways through Caddo County near the rural communities of Gracemont and Binger, Oklahoma, were deserted. Residents had long settled in their homes, leaving the quiet stretches of U.S. Highway 281 nearly void of movement. It was a time when law enforcement in rural Oklahoma had limited resources and technology, making cases like this all the more challenging to solve.

That night, an Indigenous man, Jasper Williams, had set out on foot from his home, heading south along a dirt road that eventually led to the pavement of Highway 281. It was common for community members to walk from one home to another, no matter the distance, and Jasper was going to a friend’s house. The night was pitch black, with no moonlight or streetlights to guide him, save for the faint outline of the highway stretching before him.

As Jasper walked, visibility was almost nonexistent. The road was shrouded in darkness, with no nearby lights to help him stay clear of the highway’s center. At some point, as he walked around six miles north of Gracemont—almost midway between there and Binger—tragedy struck. Jasper was hit by a passing vehicle, which left him severely injured on the side of the road. By daylight, he was found deceased, having bled to death, with no car in sight and no immediate reports of an accident.

Upon closer inspection, deputies discovered fragments of evidence scattered on Jasper’s clothing and body: broken glass, bits of chrome, a hubcap, and remnants of a car’s signal light and headlight assembly, as well as traces of paint. With these clues, investigators determined the incident might not be an ordinary accident but potentially a case of vehicular homicide.

The case was assigned as a homicide due to the absence of witnesses, the lack of any report from the driver, and the fact that the vehicle fled the scene. Caddo County Deputies Hamilton and Ware—both of whom have since passed—took on the painstaking task of finding the person responsible. Armed with the physical evidence, they began an exhaustive search of autobody shops across the county and surrounding areas, hoping to find a vehicle with damage matching the debris at the scene.

After several weeks, their search finally paid off. The deputies located a damaged vehicle that matched the evidence they’d collected. The owner was identified and subsequently interviewed, leading to the arrest of a man named Larry Johnson.

During questioning, Johnson admitted he had left a bar in Binger around 2 a.m. on the night Jasper was killed. On his drive home, he confessed to drifting in and out of sleep, initially thinking he had hit an animal, possibly a dog. However, he chose not to stop. Later, after hearing news of the fatal accident, he realized he was likely the driver involved but continued to hope he was wrong.

Johnson was later tried in Caddo County, where a jury found him guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to serve 15 years at Oklahoma’s Granite Reformatory.

Note: Some names, dates, and details have been altered to protect individuals’ privacy.