Prison terms affirmed in Rib Crib cook killing
BY BILL BRAUN World Staff Writer
Saturday, January 19, 2013
1/19/13 at 5:47 AM
An appeals court has affirmed sentences of life plus 75 years in prison for the only defendant to stand trial for the murder of a Rib Crib restaurant cook.
By a 5-0 vote, the state Court of Criminal Appeals recently upheld the convictions and sentences incurred by Isaiah Peevy.
A Tulsa County jury in 2011 found Peevy guilty of the first-degree felony murder of Howard "Bud" Stoddard, a cook at the Rib Crib at 1601 S. Harvard Ave.
Peevy was sentenced to life in prison, with parole possible, for murder.
Jurors also found Peevy guilty of five counts of robbery with a firearm, one count of attempted robbery and one count of second- degree burglary.
District Judge Bill Musseman sentenced him, in accordance with the trial verdicts, to consecutive prison terms of 20, 20, 10 and 10 years for robbery, 10 years for attempted robbery and five years for burglary.
Musseman dismissed one robbery count, which would have carried a 15-year term, because that count provided an underlying basis for felony murder and therefore merged with the murder count.
Peevy, now 22, argued unsuccessfully on appeal that two other robbery counts should have been dismissed based on the merger issue.
Testimony indicated that three masked robbers entered the restaurant through a back door after it closed on the night of May 20, 2010. Stoddard, 50, was fatally shot.
Two other men, D'Andre Finnie, 21, and Deonte Marshall, 22, are in prison in the case.
Finnie pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, three counts of robbery with a firearm and one count of second-degree burglary.
Finnie, who was a prosecution witness at Peevy's trial, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Marshall pleaded no contest to first-degree felony murder. He pleaded guilty to robbery, burglary and firearm offenses and was sentenced to life plus 15 years in prison, to run consecutively with a 15-year prison term imposed for an unrelated robbery.
The appellate opinion in Finnie's case indicates that Marshall shot Stoddard.
According to Finnie, Peevy had a .40-caliber handgun and Marshall had a 9 mm weapon when the three entered the Rib Crib. Finnie has asserted that he did not have a gun inside the restaurant.
The life sentences for murder require Peevy and Marshall to each serve 38 years and three months before becoming eligible for parole on that offense alone.
Bill Braun 918-581-8455
bill.braun@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
Isaiah Peevy: A jury found him guilty of the first-degree felony murder of Howard "Bud" Stoddard, a cook at the Rib Crib at 1601 S. Harvard Ave. Peevy was sentenced to life in prison, with parole possible. Jurors also found him guilty of robbery with a firearm, attempted robbery and second-degree burglary, crimes for which he was sentenced in total to 75 years in prison
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