GUILTY OK - Amanda Cecil, 24, murdered in her Chickasha home, 5 Sept 2014

A man wanted for questioning in the death of his girlfriend in Oklahoma is now in a Gallup hospital. Officials say he got caught up in bizarre road rage incident that involved a crowbar and a stolen Jeep.

The man’s girlfriend was found dead in her home, but before law enforcement could talk to her boyfriend, he took off. This weekend, they learned he was in New Mexico...

New Mexico State Police were called to a road rage incident Saturday night. They say Gray allegedly threw a crowbar at a driver and the driver hit him with his car. He was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Click to expand...

The boyfriend of a Chickasha woman, who was found dead at her home last Friday, is being held by New Mexico authorities for possession of a stolen vehicle and in connection with an alleged murder. However, OSBI has not named him as a suspect in the woman's death.

Last Friday, 24-year-old Amanda Cecil was found dead inside her home in the 1200 block of Choctaw Avenue, where she lived with her boyfriend, 31-year-old Lofton Amier Gray.

According to the Medical Examiner's office, Cecil's cause of death was gunshot wound to the head, and her manner of death was homicide.

Click to expand...

According to a Grady County affidavit, a couple of hours after Cecil's body was discovered, neighbors, who lived just across the river their home, caught Gray trying to "hotwire their car." When confronted about the attempted theft, Gray allegedly told them "he was scared," "needed a safe place to get himself together," and that "they were after him."

The couple described Gray as damp and muddy, and they say he told them he had been hiding because "someone was chasing him." As he ran from the home to a nearby business, he allegedly told them "he needed to get away."

The affidavit states that Gray then went to a business on N. Industrial Blvd. and stole a 1991 Jeep Cherokee.

Click to expand...

The Grady County District Attorney's office plans to file murder one charges against Lofton Amier Gray Jr...

"Lofton Gray, Jr., 31, was extradited to Oklahoma and is being held in the Grady County Detention Center in Chickasha," the release states. "He was extradited on the charges of Larceny of a Motor Vehicle and Attempted Larceny of a Motor Vehicle. His arraignment is set for Friday in Grady County District Court."

Click to expand...

The man accused of killing a 24-year-old Chickasha resident has been found competent to stand trial. Grady County Assistant District Attorney Leah Edwards said Lofton Gray Jr. will have his preliminary hearing March 4...

Gray said he wanted to move back to California, but Cecil would not allow him, according to the report.

"Gray admitted that Cecil was asleep when he shot her," the report states.

Click to expand...

Gray said he wanted to move back to California, but Cecil would not allow him, according to the report.

Click to expand...

Yoda said:

I totally read the title wrong. I thought police murdered the victim's boyfriend.

Click to expand...

Yoda said:

I totally read the title wrong. I thought police murdered the victim's boyfriend.

Click to expand...

Lofton Gray told authorities that he was seeing visions on the wall and shadows in the windows before he shot his girlfriend, Amanda Cecil on Sept. 5, according to OSBI agent, Lynn Williams.

Williams was a witness at a preliminary hearing on Sept. 5 at the Grady County Courthouse.

Williams referred to an interview he had with Gray. The interview took place in a hospital room in New Mexico. Gray had been hit by a car while he was allegedly evading arrest.

Click to expand...

It took about two hours for an all-male jury to decide Lofton Gray was responsible for the 2014 shooting death of Amanda Cecil.

Gray, 33, was found guilty of murder in the first degree, larceny of a motor vehicle and attempted larceny of a motor vehicle. The jury recommended sentences of life without parole, six years imprisonment and two years imprisonment respectively. Gray will be formally sentenced at 1:30 p.m. on April 12 in Grady County District Judge Richard Van Dyck’s courtroom.

The courtroom was quiet as the verdict was read, with only a couple of solitary sobs emanating from the left side of the courtroom, where about 18 members of Cecil’s family listened attentively to the testimony during the three days of trial.

Gray listened quietly and without emotion even as Grady County Sheriff deputies handcuffed him and escorted him out of the courtroom.

Click to expand...

Two emotion filled letters from Amanda Cecil’s mother and father helped Grady County District Judge Richard Van Dyck affirm the sentence handed down by a jury almost three weeks ago.

Lofton Gray the man who a jury said took Cecil’s life will serve life imprisonment without the possibility of parole followed by eight years for two larceny charges connected to the murder.

Click to expand...

When it came to sentencing, Amanda’s mother Susan McGrew-Cecil asked for the max sentence citing that would prevent Gray from victimizing anyone else.

“There isn’t a sentence that will return our Mandy to us or allow her sister, Emily, to unsee Mandy’s body on the floor, beside the bed where she died, wrapped up in all the bedding, clutching her pillow with a magazine of bullets lying on top of her body,” she said. “The best we can hope is that Mandy’s killer will never be able to abuse, demean, hurt or kill another woman. A lifetime in prison should give him ample time to consider his actions, come to terms with his choices and possibly ask his maker for forgiveness.”

Click to expand...