MOBILE, Ala. (TCN) — A 54-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the April 20 triple homicide that left a mother and her two children, including a pregnant teen, dead.
After getting a request from 17-year-old Keziah Arionna Luker’s boyfriend to perform a welfare check on the family, police found the bodies of Luker, her 12-year-old brother, Thomas Cordelle Jr., and her mother, 46-year-old Lisa Gail Fields.
Luker had been shot, Cordelle’s throat had been slit nearly to the point of decapitation, and Fields had been stabbed in addition to having her throat cut. An 18-month-old child belonging to Luker was located in the house, unharmed. The house was in disarray and police believed it to be a targeted attack; Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch said he did not think it was tied to a domestic incident.
On April 28, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office announced that they had arrested William Graham Oliver in connection with the homicides, WFSB reports. He was charged with eight counts of capital murder. Burch said, “Anytime there are children involved, it makes it a little tougher and especially an unborn child.” WKRG reports that two of Oliver’s charges are for the death of Luker’s unborn baby; she was approximately eight months pregnant at the time of her death.
The Independent reports Oliver was arrested during a traffic stop after a search warrant was executed at his home.
According to Burch, Oliver had known the family for quite some time and was looking for something inside the home on April 19. WFSB reports that investigators know what he was looking for, as well as his motive, but those details have not yet been released.
Oliver’s criminal history dates back to 1990, but the capital murder charges are his first violent charges, per WFSB. He was booked into jail on April 28 following his arrest.
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