Mario Normore was an Oklahoma City man in his twenties who, by his own plea in 2023, killed four people in the Oklahoma City area during 2017. He had been released from prison only months before. Police tied him to the deaths after his arrest in October 2017 on a series of robbery charges, and in September 2018 prosecutors agreed to add four murder counts. In March 2023 he pleaded guilty to killing four people, a plea that took the death penalty off the table, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
The courts' own wording of the charges, the date of the plea and the name of the sentencing judge are not on record.
Normore was 27 in September 2018, when police announced the murder charges. His date of birth is not on record. He was from Oklahoma City. Police said in 2018 that he had been released from prison only months before the events of 2017; the offense that put him there is not on record, and neither is the length of that earlier sentence.
His early life, schooling, family and work history are not on record.
Police said Normore knew all four people he was later linked to.
Bashar Burks was 27. Police said he and Normore had worked together. Ashley Easton was 30 and was in a relationship with Burks. Both died in July 2017 in Oklahoma City. Police later treated the deaths as murders. Little else about the two as people, their families or their lives is on record.
Searra Howe was 21 and, according to police, a friend of Normore's. Police identified her in November 2017 and opened a homicide investigation, with no suspect named at that point. Her death is dated to 2017; the exact day is not on record.
James Steven Knowles was 58. He was an acquaintance of Normore's. Normore was charged with his murder in 2018. His death is dated to October 2017. A friend said publicly in September 2018 that he had been like a father to her.
Normore was arrested on October 27, 2017, and was held in the Oklahoma County Jail from that date, still there in September 2018. He was charged with ten counts of armed robbery, two of them at banks and eight at businesses, committed over roughly two months in the Oklahoma City area in the late summer and fall of 2017. He pleaded not guilty to those counts and was held without bond. How the ten robbery counts were resolved is not on record.
Police linked him to the four deaths while he was held on the robbery counts.
On Friday, September 28, 2018, Oklahoma City police announced that the Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office had agreed with their recommendation to add four murder counts to the case against Normore. Formal charging papers had not yet been filed that afternoon, and his defense attorney told the Associated Press he did not know whether more charges would be coming. A police spokeswoman, Megan Morgan, said of him: "He's the only suspect right now."
Police released no details that day of what linked Normore to the deaths. The evidence was not made public.
While he was held in the Oklahoma County Jail, Normore was one of three inmates involved in a disturbance on September 23, 2018. Prosecutors charged him, along with Shamar Greer and Jaleel Green, in connection with it. As reported on October 15, 2018, the charges against him were two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of injuring or damaging county property, and one count of incitement to riot. In 2023 he pleaded guilty to multiple charges connected to the riot, and to assaulting a police officer. The exact counts of that plea are not on record.
In March 2023 Normore pleaded guilty to killing four people in the Oklahoma City area in 2017. The plea ended the possibility of a death sentence. A judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole. The reported sentence is life without parole; whether separate terms were imposed for each of the four deaths, or whether any of them run one after another, is not on record. The court, the date of sentencing and the counts' exact legal wording are not on record either.
Because the plea was a guilty plea, there was no trial of the four murder counts. The preliminary-hearing stage and any appeal are not on record.
The four deaths fall into three separate events: the two victims who died together in July 2017, the death of Searra Howe, and the death of James Steven Knowles in October 2017. All four are covered by his plea.
The statutory wording of the four murder counts and the court in which he entered his plea.
The date of the plea and of the sentencing hearing, and the judge's name.
Whether the sentences are concurrent or consecutive.
How the ten robbery counts were resolved.
His earlier conviction, the length of that sentence, and his upbringing.
His present place of confinement and any later court filings.
Statements by the victims' families after the plea.
Before 2017: Normore serves a prison sentence; the offense is not on record.
Months before October 2017: released from prison.
July 2017: Bashar Burks, 27, and Ashley Easton, 30, die in Oklahoma City.
2017: Searra Howe, 21, dies; police identify her in November 2017.
October 2017: James Steven Knowles, 58, dies.
October 27, 2017: Normore is arrested on robbery charges and held in the Oklahoma County Jail.
September 23, 2018: disturbance at the Oklahoma County Jail involving Normore and two other inmates.
September 28, 2018: police announce that four murder counts will be added; he is held without bond.
October 15, 2018: jail-disturbance charges against him are reported.
March 2023: pleads guilty to killing four people in 2017, avoiding the death penalty; sentenced to life without parole.