Barry Christian, 54, a Republican candidate for the OK state senate, missed a scheduled meeting yesterday and was reported missing.
Today he was found dead in the trunk of his own car, which was abandoned on the side of a road outside of the town of Erick. No cause of death has been reported.
Interesting and perplexing story. Suicide? Murder? Definitely an investigation to watch.
Suicide? That seems unlikely.
Crazy story though.
Was he an actual candidate or fairly fringe?
One of three candidates in the Republican primary, but I can’t find any polling information.
I guess an election like this gets no attention. This is all I could find:
Senate District 38, Beckham, Greer, Harmon, Jackson, Kiowa, Tillman and Washita counties
Three Republicans are vying for the seat being vacated by Sen. Brent Howard, who announced last year that he would not seek a third and final term in the Senate.
The three GOP candidates are:
- Joe Buchanan, 63, a former chief of the Altus Fire Department;
- Rick Vernon, 50, an Altus attorney; and
- Barry Dwaine Christian, 54, a drilling consultant from Sayre.
No other candidate filed for the southwest Oklahoma seat.
No polling data. Just about everything you try to find on him is either this story of him being found dead, or the rare bit of campaigning info he has put out.
I’m not seeing the word trunk anywhere. The article links one from from 2 hours earlier that says his abandoned “truck” was found. The newer article uses “car” however.
Do you have more info than is in the article?
Raw Story says he was found in the trunk, but they’re citing the article I posted, which doesn’t mention a trunk. Another source is saying the vehicle is a Dodge Ram, so “trunk” might have been an error on their part.
I’ll ask the mods to change the thread title.
Huh. Dead in the driver’s seat of a truck could be a heart attack. Dead in the trunk of a car sounds like murder. I guess we’ll find out more.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation officials on Thursday night confirmed that they had positively identified the body found in a pickup at the Sandy Sanders Wildlife Management Area was that of Barry Christian.
Source:
Here is a local news story:
He was found in his Dodge Ram truck.
ETA: Ninja’d by about 2 seconds.