OK Co. Court Clerk To Preserve First Official Criminal Records

The Oklahoma County court clerk is working to preserve the county’s early indictment records from more than a hundred years ago.

The efforts were sparked by Deputy Bradley Wynn who asked to see the books as part of his work as a historian for the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Oklahoma County Court Clerk Rick Warren pulled the books from the shelves in the basement of the courthouse and saw their condition.

Inside the large, leather-bound books are the handwritten pages of our history.

The books chronicle the first official criminal records in Oklahoma County, showing case number one in 1890: James McCarty was indicted for murder in the Territory of Oklahoma.

Wynn said McCarty shot a man dead in a bar, got out on bond, and later faced the consequences of the crime in 1906.

“Through the books, through the story of this case, we learned that he only got one-year sentence for murder,” Wynn told News 9.

Wynn said most of the record books are now infected with what's called "red rot" and once the outside covers expire, the pages will be at risk.

“They’re decaying at a rapid pace,” he said about the books.

Now, Warren is working to get a court order to allow Wynn to legally take the books out of the courthouse, so he can digitize them and help maintain the physical copies. 

“I took an oath that I would preserve the records and the books, so I take that very seriously. In my heart I feel like it’s a duty that I may have stumbled upon, but I’m very proud to be a part of it,” Warren said. “I think the entire state will benefit from saving these.”

Wynn would be scanning in the books at no cost to the county.