Prosecutor Seeking New Trial For Karl Fontenot After Acquittal In 1984 Ada Murder

An Oklahoma district attorney is seeking a new trial for Karl Fontenot, who in 2019 was acquitted for the 1984 murder of an Ada woman.  

Fontenot and his co-defendant, Thomas Ward’s case drew national attention as the subject of the Netflix series The Innocent Man. A federal judge in Muscogee vacated Ward’s murder conviction, finding “numerous constitutional violations that occurred in this case.”  

Comanche County DA Kyle Cabelka submitted a motion to set a new trial for Fontenot on Friday, days ahead of a deadline to do so set by the federal court.  

Cabelka did not respond to News 9’s request for comment Monday. The Oklahoma Attorney General's office assigned Cabelka the case after Pontotoc County district attorney, Paul Smith, submitted a disqualification request, according to court records. 

Fontenot’s federal appeal ended with a scathing rebuke of the police investigation.  

U.S. District Judge James Payne wrote that “not one details of” Fontenot’s initial confession to police after hours of interrogation “could ever be corroborated with any evidence in the case.”  

“The Ada Police Department investigators turned a blind eye to many important pieces of evidence, relying instead on witness statements that fit their theory of the case while disregarding much stronger evidence of alternate suspects,” Payne wrote in 2019.  

Fontenot’s co-defendant, Thomas Ward, is still locked up after the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reinstated his life sentence earlier this year.