Today we're headed back to Nunan, Georgia because just a couple of weeks ago, right inside this building, a woman was on trial for killing her husband. And I have come back to Nunan to talk about it. On June the 23rd of 2021, 911 operators here in Nunan received a call from a woman who sounded frantic and disheveled. and the woman told the operator that she accidentally shot her husband thinking that he was an intruder. The call goes out. Officers arrive on scene to find a woman laying over the top of a naked man and she was holding a bloody towel up against a wound trying to get it to stop bleeding. At this time, the man was conscious and he was screaming out loud that he couldn't breathe. So, the officers took over and they sent the woman outside. But despite all of their life-saving efforts, the man passed away from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The man's death led detectives to uncover the couple's diances with infidelity and swinging, sex parties, BDSM, and now murder. After changing stories multiple times, the wife quickly became suspect despite her insistence that it was just an accident. Today, as I said, I'm here in Nunan, Georgia. I'm going to tell the story and then I want all of you to decide. Was this a legitimate accident or was it coldblooded murder? This is the murder of Luther Co. III [music] in 2015. 48-year-old Luther Co III who went by Luke. He was a nun and Georgia native and he was going through a long and drawn out divorce after a 20 plus year marriage. About a year later in 2016, Luke met and fell in love with a woman named Cheryl Howell who had also gone through a divorce after a 20 plus year marriage. And also around about that same time that Luke and Cheryl began dating, Cheryl was in the process of donating a kidney to a stranger. Less than a year later, after Luke and Cheryl began dating, they decided to get married and very quickly they had a small ceremony surrounded by some of their friends and family and their children that they both had from their previous marriages. At the time of the murder, Luke and Cheryl lived in a home right back in the woods here. It was a we're in rural Cowetta County, Georgia, right outside of Nunan. The home they lived in was actually Luke's from his previous marriage. And after the divorce, he allowed his ex-wife to stay in the home for a few years, and then she finally moved out. And Luke and Cheryl moved back into the home in 2018. Now, after Luke and Cheryl moved into the home, they were just as happy as can be. Both Luke and Cheryl's children were adults at this point, and they would come to visit regularly. They both had great jobs, so they were making pretty decent money at the time. Cheryl was basically a surgical tech at a nearby hospital in their women's cancer center. And Luke had his own business that he ran with his oldest son where they did grading and tree removals, land clearing, demolitions, stuff like that. At some point between 2018 and 2020, the couple somehow got into the swingers community. Either they wanted to spice things up in their relationship or they had a friend who got them into the swing community. I've heard both of these reasons, but I'm unsure of exactly why they got into this lifestyle, but they did. And for whatever reason, once they opened that door, they absolutely loved it and they jumped right into the deep end and they started going to swinger parties. They held swinger events at their home. They emerged themselves deep into it. In 2020, Luke and Cheryl loved swinging so much that they decided that they wanted to take things a step further and they decided to make their marriage an open marriage where they could date and sleep with other people individually outside of the swinging parties and the other couples that they had. In the beginning, when they first decided to have an open marriage, they both sat down and they laid out a bunch of ground rules that they both agreed to honor just to keep one or both of them from getting jealous or anything else. First, there were limits to how many people they could talk to at a time. They had to choose partners who were tested and clean, and they always had to use protection with other people just to make sure they didn't bring anything back to their spouse. They had emotional boundaries that they couldn't cross, meaning they couldn't fall in love with someone else, I guess. They both agreed to be completely honest with each other about who they were seeing and when and where and all of that stuff. And even more, they agreed to talk to each other about how and what they did with these outside partners. The biggest rule was that they had to get approval from each other before they could sleep with someone else. So, Cheryl had to tell Luke who it was that she was wanting to see and ask for his permission before she could sleep with anyone. And Luke had to also ask for permission from Cheryl before he could do the same. In the police interview later on after all of this, Cheryl said that part of Luke agreeing to an open marriage was because after Cheryl went through menopause, her hormones were all out of whack and Luke couldn't keep up with her, which led to him actually suggesting this alternative lifestyle. But Luke never really expected to have any outside partners. It was basically just for Cheryl. But she told the detectives that she forced him to do it so that it was fair. He had to do it at least once or twice. We live an alternative lifestyle where we're with other couples, other individuals since I started menopause last summer or summer before last and we finally got my hormones and everything straight. He suggested that we go into an open marriage. It was like he felt like he couldn't keep up with me. So he put that all on the table and we try it. >> He offered for you. >> So we can try it. But the agreement is if I'm doing you know >> we don't I don't do something that you're not doing that you're not in agreement with and you're not doing. >> Luke knew that Cheryl would have an easier time finding people than he would. I mean, that's just the way it goes. But he did as she asked and he started talking to a few girls that were actually friends of Cheryl's. They may have even worked at the hospital with her. I'm not 100% sure on that, but I think they did. >> Okay, going back to the the messages between the two women that he was messaging with. The one in particular that I've developed a friendship with is the one that let me know that he didn't turn right around and sent her a message and said, "Hey, it's me again." And you know, I heard I understand you and Cheryl talked yesterday and it she mis she misunderstood it and relayed the misunderstanding to me. And that's when I accused him of going back to doing the same thing that he used to do, which was talking too much. >> After a few months of living this alternative marriage lifestyle, they discovered that they didn't enjoy it as much as they did swinging as a couple. Being open actually caused a lot of fights and jealousy between them, and they kept adding and changing the rules every week. Now, did he ever ask ever have to ask you for permission to >> Okay. So, it wasn't just one-sided. >> No, it was I mean, he would he would plan something and then he would be like, you know, you got anything going on that day? Are you okay with this? And and that would be it. >> So, if you said no, would he not do it or would he follow through with it? >> No, he would not do it. just like he told me no and I I was okay with that. I said, "Okay." >> Cheryl also didn't like that Luke seemed to talk a lot about their situation to everybody. Cheryl frequently got angry because Luke would tell every stranger that he met about their open marriage and the details of it. And she just didn't like that. Cheryl thought the personal details about their sex life and the reason why they got into all this should be a secret between them. No, he has always had a habit and we've been working on this of um sharing too much information. I mean, he had no problem telling anybody, a total stranger, that we were in an open marriage. And I mean, this is the town that I grew up in. We grew up completely differently. He didn't care what anybody anybody thought about him. I I did. And so, I was more private about it than he was. And that's when it would kind of cause a problem. I couldn't couldn't trust him to keep his mouth shut and not say anything. >> These things caused quite a bit of fighting and turmoil between them and it got to a point very quickly where they each thought the other one was lying about who they were sleeping with and where they were going when they left the house. >> It it was all a big misunderstanding. But usually he has no problem. If if I ask him if he did something, he'll screenshot the conversation and send it to me. And he just wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. >> On June 19th of 2021, Luke and Cheryl were supposed to host a sex party here at their home with a handful of other couples. But that evening, the weather wound up getting really bad and all the couples but one backed out. And even though they went through with the party with just this one other couple, it was a disappointment for them. Partially because of this disappointing party and because of all the fighting and stuff they were doing at the time, Luke and Cheryl made plans to spend some time together, just the two of them, for a whole week. So for the week of June 21st through June 27th, they both were supposed to cancel all of their outside partners and all their plans. So neither one of them had anything to do after work. On June 21st though, Cheryl texted Luke and asked if they could change the rules of their agreement because Cheryl was talking to two men at the same time as well. But Cheryl wanted to schedule them both at the same time before the two of them spent this week together, which both of them at the same time was definitely against the rules that they had set up in the beginning. and Cheryl asking for this right at the same time they were supposed to be spending this week with each other. It made Luke furious and they had a huge fight over it where Luke told Cheryl that it turned his stomach and disgusted him what she was trying to do. I suggested that we spend some time together Monday night. And um he said that kind of made his stomach turn me talking about meeting up with somebody else and then us spending time together when I mean that's what we did. And um [clears throat] he disagreed with my plans for the week and said it made his stomach turn. I said okay. and he said that he felt like that was a little bit too much in a week's time and that it made his stomach turn. >> So over the previous years since they became swingers and opened up their marriage, they began dabbling in BDSM. Luke was the dominant, Cheryl was the submissive. And one of the things that came out during the investigation was that these scenarios of Luke being enraged and just furious and then him taking control of Cheryl, it was actually what turned him on. So as they're having this argument because she wanted to change the rules and have two men at the same time. It just led to Luke and Cheryl becoming physical with with each other in the bedroom. But then once they were finished, Luke was still just as mad as he was when they first started. And they got nothing accomplished. He gets turned on and very aggressive when he gets turned on. And so I I've gotten used to it. It's not a big deal anymore, but he likes to slap real hard. He just seemed more angry tonight. I mean, there was no that that aggression happens when when we're hanging out and we're, you know, playing in the pool and drinking and and that's when that that type of the I don't want to say good aggression, but the good side of it, the the BDSM side of it comes out. In fact, they didn't speak to each other that night during this or after it once it was done. And then they didn't speak to each other for the next couple of days after this. >> Now, when y'all were having a disagreement, did it get physical? >> No, it was all by text message. We never even saw each other. after all of that happened. The very next day, Luke got off work and he came home and he got his motorcycle and he took it over to a friend's house to do some work on it. And then he didn't come in until after Cheryl was asleep already. So, they didn't speak then. They kind of angrily texted each other a few times throughout the day about important things, but other than that, they didn't say a word to each other. And then it would all change on June the 23rd when Luke sent Cheryl a text at about 300 p.m. while he was still at work and she was at work. And he told Cheryl that he was ready to talk about it with her. And then he sent her another text telling her that they were going to talk about it that night after they got off from work. So Cheryl actually got happy after reading his text. And on her way home from the hospital, she stopped and she got some stuff so she could cook a dinner for him and she picked up a six-ack of like Angry Orchards uh drinks and then she headed home to have this talk with Luke. Luke, on the other hand, he made it home from work and he started drinking whiskey shots with his oldest son and they went out to the shop and they kept working on the motorcycle that he had took out the day before. Once Cheryl got home, she went in the kitchen and she cooked dinner and she waited, but Luke never came inside. So, she actually ate dinner by herself and she went out onto their back porch with a book to read and to drink. Cheryl sat out on their back porch for more than two hours drinking five bottles of those angry orchards while reading her book. And Luke still never came in from the garage to talk to her or even eat dinner. Cheryl said that she actually heard Luke's son leave the garage at about 6:00 p.m. but that Luke just stayed out in the shop and he had his music blaring and he just never came in. So by 7:00 p.m. Cheryl had just given up and she went inside and she took a colonopen and a fine and she went to bed. Now all this is is obviously coming from Cheryl because we only have her side of the story, but Cheryl has been pretty consistent up to this point in the story. So I really think what she said was probably pretty close to the truth. Now, after this though, you can't really go by what she says because her story has changed multiple times. Cheryl says that she went to bed at about 7:00 p.m. that night and by 7:15 she was already asleep. She said that right after she went to sleep, her door flung open super fast and it made a loud bang, startling her awake. And out of instinct, she said that she reacted and she just reached over. She grabbed her gun from her bedside table and then she fired in the direction of the door. It wasn't until she heard Luke cry out, "Babe, you shot me that she flipped on the light and realized that it was her husband." It was then Cheryl in a panic calls 911 and tells them that she shot her husband thinking that he was an intruder. Once the 911 call goes out, officers hightaila over here to the home and then when the first officer arrived, he looked for a way to get into the home and he ultimately wound up going through the garage entrance and as soon as he got inside, he heard a man and a woman crying out for help from the back bedroom. >> Sheriff's office. >> Sheriff's office. Please, please help >> to the left. Can you come in front and back? >> We're here. >> Come out. >> We're in the master bedroom. >> So, he and another officer enter that bedroom to find a naked Luc laying on the floor saying that he can't breathe. And then Cheryl, who was fully clothed, was right next to him holding a towel up under his right arm trying to stop his wound from bleeding. As the officers come in, Luke, who is awake and conscious, and he's talking to him, he tries to get up and they tell him to lay back down. The officers and arriving EMTs, they take over and they send Cheryl outside. But right after Cheryl went outside, Luke's vitals dropped off completely and he lost consciousness. The EMTs did everything they could, but despite their life-saving efforts, by this time Luke's lungs had collapsed and he had lost way too much blood and Luther co III passed away right there in his bedroom from a single gunshot wound to the chest. Almost immediately, the officers in the room called investigators as now it had changed from an accidental shooting to a death investigation. Detectives arrived here to the house and they found the home swarming with police officers and Cheryl Co was laying out in the front yard on the ground screaming. They managed to actually get her up and get her up on the front porch in a chair so they could talk to her and find out what happened. So, Cheryl proceeds to tell them this story just as I has laid it out to you up until now. >> All right, ma'am. Can you tell me what happened? >> He was out in the shop. He's been in the shop since I got home. >> Okay. >> I had four five angry orchards sitting out on the back porch by myself. >> Okay. >> I went to bed. I took my medicine before I went to bed. >> He came in yelling and I grabbed the gun off of the nightstand and started shooting because I was scared. >> You were scared of him? >> No, I didn't know who it was. >> Okay. >> I didn't know who had come in. I just knew somebody would come in the house yelling. We leave our doors open. Please God, oh God, please. >> No. 130 and 82. >> 130 82. >> So she had about five or six beers sitting on the back porch. He's was out in the shop. She had taken her medicine and laid down. He came in yelling about something and she scared her. So, she grabbed the gun and shot. But that doesn't explain why he's nude. >> And it doesn't explain >> anything. That makes no sense to me. >> You want me to fill it out or you want it? >> It don't matter to me. >> A few things about her version of events caused them to raise their eyebrows. For one, Cheryl said that she went to bed at 7 and then was asleep by 7:15. Well, the 911 call came in at 7:26. So, that's just 11 minutes between the time she supposedly went to sleep and then all of this went down. And detectives just didn't think that it was plausible that she had enough time to go to sleep and then be startled awake, shoot her husband, and then call 911. And then let me ask you this because you said you went to bed at 7:15. Correct. >> Sometime around that. >> Okay. And you called 911 at 7:26. Correct. That's what the call screen says that you called 911. Okay. So that means that you were asleep for approximately 11 minutes >> if you fell asleep. >> If he fell immediately. >> If he fell asleep immediately. So 7:15 to 7:26. That's 11 minutes um for someone to fall asleep so hardly that they don't know what's going on or you know the doors, you know, slung open and the first thing that you do is reach for your gun and and fire off two rounds. So, >> I had had too much to drink. >> Okay. >> Another eyebrow raised was the fact that it was still daylight out at this time. Even when investigators arrived on scene and they took Cheryl up to the porch, as you can see, it was still daylight out and it didn't get dark for some time after. So, detectives were concerned. How does she not see that it was her husband? What I'm trying to understand is you describe someone opening the door and so you got that beautiful home with all those windows and it's still light outside. And so even if you had blackout curtains in your bedroom, the light from all those windows would have shown through your bedroom like that. So then that coupled with the television being there, a person would would recognize that their husband of four years and the partner of six, especially if they're speaking, yelling, angry. And so I'm having trouble making sense of how both you say you couldn't recognize even the silhouette of your husband. And then when the investigators went into the bedroom, they noted that there were bottles of lubricant and water that were just laying on the couple's bed, but Cheryl didn't mention anything about them having sex. And yet she had all of her clothes on and Luke didn't. So they casually asked Cheryl if she slept with clothes on or in the nude. And she replied that she actually slept in the nude. So then they asked how did she get dressed since there was only 11 minutes between her going to sleep and calling 911. And Cheryl told him that after she shot Luke and she realized that it was him, she called 911. Then she ran and got some towels to try to stop the bleeding. And while she was holding the towel with one hand, she managed to put shorts and a shirt on with the other hand while holding the phone up to her ear talking to the 911 operator. >> Like, well, what were you wearing at the time that that all this happened? >> I didn't have any clothes on. My clothes were in in the chair. We we don't sleep with clothes on. Um, and so those clothes that you were wearing when the EMT, the EMTs got there, I guess you just got them from the chair that you just >> I got them from the chair and was putting them on as they were pulling in the driveway, holding one hand on that and on the putting pressure on it and putting my clothes on. >> And it wasn't that hard to pull it back over my head. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And it was right there. I didn't have It's not like I went to a dresser to get anything. It was right there in the chair. It's the same thing that I put on every afternoon when I get home from work. >> It was here that Cheryl's version of events changed for the first time. And it was also here where detectives decided that they needed to take her down to the police station to finish their interview because they knew at this point it was probably going to be a long night. Once they got Cheryl down to the police station, they let her stew in one of their interrogation rooms for a couple of hours where Cheryl actually laid down on the floor and went to sleep. Eventually though, they came in and they got her up and they went over some of the details in her story. In the second goound, Cheryl now tells the detectives that she fired the two shots and both of them were warning shots or so that Luke, who she says she thought was out in the garage, would be able to hear the shots and come in and save her. So, she claims that both shots were meant to miss the intruder just so Luke would come in to help. And at that point, you're done. >> That's all I I mean, at that point, I reached for the gun. >> Okay. >> And then you said you fired two shots. >> I'm obviously not a good aim because I fired once and it hit the ceiling or somewhere. I couldn't even see where it even hit. And then the second shot is when >> and I fired the second shot to what I thought was the right of whoever I mean I thought I'd be hitting the TV more than anything else because I was I wasn't trying to I was trying to get get Luke's attention out there more than anything and so that he could come in and take care of it because I'm not that good of a shot And I I I didn't even until until he said, "Cheryl, you shot me." And and and he's he's like this and and I turned the light on and I'm looking trying to find where and I saw blood on his arm and I thought maybe it had grazed his arm and then he lifted his arm and that's when I saw the hole. The detectives knew that now she's changed her story twice. She wasn't telling the whole truth. So they continued pressing Cheryl. And her story did change again for the third time. And now Cheryl told them that her bedroom door flung open, startling her awake, and she fired one shot, missing Luke and actually hitting the wall beside their TV. Cheryl says that she flipped on the light and saw it was Luke, but that he was angry that she had just shot at him. He became enraged and he told her to get up and get out of his bedroom and go to the living room and she refused and then he grabbed her and he tried to drag her out of the bed and tried to drag her down the hallway. And Cheryl told investigators that she was afraid that he was about to kill her. And she said that he started coming for her and she feared for her life. So then she fired the second shot striking him this time. And I'm just asking that in return that you give us that respect and just explain explain explain to to us what happened because you know being there taking pictures looking at the crime scene and everything that you were saying um there's a piece that you're not sharing with us. Okay. And I just Cheryl I'm I just want to hear it from you. He came in. He pointed the door open and he was yelling and Okay. Who when you say who who's like okay he was yelling and throwing things and drag grabbed hold of me and and told me if I wasn't going to talk to him that I had to go sleep in the other room and he was pulling me out of the bed and that and I I grabbed the gun from the side of the bed and I fired it at the ceiling. >> Okay. Was that a warning shot or >> No, that was a you know I'm scared because he's I mean he scares me sometimes, especially when he's been drinking and I don't know whether he'd been drinking or not and That was They were both supposed to be warning shots. >> It I mean, one was at the ceiling and one was at the wall on the other side. I wasn't trying to hit him. I fired the first shot. >> Okay. And then he started moving back like he was coming back in there to drag me out of there. So I fired the second shot and I was trying to shoot the wall. I was never trying to shoot him. And that's why when he said I hit him, I had no idea where where I where I could have hit him. Were you standing or were you still in the bed when you were when you were firing the rounds? >> By the time I by the time I shot the second one, I was standing. >> Okay. >> In all three versions of Cheryl's story, she fired the shot that hit Luke from across the room. Basically, very quickly though, within hours, even before detectives finished talking to Cheryl, detectives had already swabbed Luke's wound and they found muzzle compressions on his skin. in in a few places, meaning the gun had actually been pressed up against his skin, removed, and then pressed against him again. And then they found suit and stippling around Luke's gunshot wound, meaning that Luke was shot from less than 6 in away at point blank range. Which also meant that Cheryl was completely lying about what happened. and the detectives knew it as Cheryl was telling them this third version of her story. So based on all of Cheryl's lies, the questions her story left unanswered and the evidence that investigators had uncovered in just the the couple of hours after Luke had been shot, detectives formally arrested Cheryl Co. that same night and charged her with Luke's death. Cheryl was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault. Not before the officers let her make one phone call though to her mom to let her know what was going on. >> Mom. Okay. Um, no, it's not. No, it's not okay. [snorts] holy fears. I went to my went to plo was in the shop and we've been arguing for the past couple of days. We had I mean spoken at all just text messages and the door bedroom better door flung open and I just grabbed my gun and shot because I didn't know what to think. In the days and weeks following Cheryl's arrest, detectives kept investigating. They subpoenaed Cheryl and Luke's phone records and their social media accounts. And it was discovered that just 30 minutes prior to Luke's death, Cheryl was messaging back and forth with a guy about hooking up the next day. While going through Cheryl's phone and checking out all of her social media, they stumbled across a Facebook post that Cheryl made the day before the shooting that detectives spent quite a bit of time looking into. I don't know if it ever amounted to anything or if it meant anything or not, but I know they dug into it for quite a while. Cheryl Co sat in jail basically the whole time from the day he was shot and she was arrested later that night until her trial in February of 2025. Cheryl would finally have her day in court after sitting in jail for four years where she continued her story of self-defense where he tried to attack her and was dragging her down the hall. Well, at the end of the trial though, the jury was deadlocked and they couldn't overcome it. So, the judge declared the whole trial a mistrial and then Cheryl was given a new trial date and she went back off to the Cowetta County Jail to sit some more while she waited for it. She wouldn't have to wait very long. In fact, just this August that just passed, just 6 months later after that mistrial, Cheryl's new trial started. And then after a week of showing evidence and they had experts come in and talk about the gunshot residue and all that and then they had a handful of testimony from Cheryl's friends and family and lovers. A jury unanimously found Cheryl Howell Co. guilty of malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. Once the verdict was read, the judge right there on the same day immediately sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So now after spending four years in the county jail waiting on her trial date and then the stress of that first trial and it being a mistrial and then waiting some more in the county jail. By the time she was actually found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, Cheryl Co looked remarkably different than she did the day that she shot her husband. That's on all of this footage that I have. To this day though, Cheryl Co. still claims that she didn't intentionally kill Luke despite her guilty verdict that uh it was self-defense basically. And she's never answered any of the questions about why she changed her story so many times. She didn't answer any of the unanswered questions that they had from the day of the murder. She just still claimed it was self-defense. Nevertheless though, she was found guilty and she is currently sitting in the Georgia Department of Corrections serving her life sentence without parole. That is going to do it for this episode here today from Nunan, Georgia and the murder of Luke Co. I want to thank you all so much for watching. If you're new here, go down, hit that subscribe button, then hit that notification bell so you get notified every time I upload a video. Thank you all and I will see you in the next one. Please, all of you stay safe and stay healthy. Much love to you all. [music] [music]